Book Review : Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

Sweet Thursday takes place nine years after Cannery Row and features most of the characters from the first book. There’s a new character called Suzy who provides some love interest for Doc as well as a man called Hazel whose horoscope shows he will be President of the United States in the future.

Doc has a great theory about octopodes having studied them closely at his Western Biological Laboratory business. He goes to a nearby seaside place and gathers baby octopodes to bring back and based on his findings, he decides he should, he must, write a scholarly treatise. However, he lacks a certain something to get him started, something to spark his motivation.

Mack and the boys at the Palace Flophouse decide that what Doc needs is a woman, and that the woman should be Suzy. Someone (not Doc) comes up with a great idea and that is to hold a party to get Doc and Suzy together. Unfortunately, the party achieves the exact opposite. Suzy gives up her job as a prostitute and takes up waitressing whilst moving to live in a massive, old boiler. She does have feelings for Doc and Hazel thinks he has a solution to their apartness. Hazel breaks Doc’s arm when he’s asleep with a mallet, thinking that Suzy will want to nurse Doc back to health.

Is he correct? There’s only one way to find out…