ON CANNERY ROW in Monterey, the street that Steinbeck
immortalized in fi ction, there stands an unobtrusive wood-
en building with redwood shingles and a small sign reading
“Pacifi c Biological Laboratories.” Susan Shillinglaw, former
director of the National Steinbeck Cen-
ter in nearby Salinas, has agreed to show
me the lab where Ed Ricketts, the model
for Doc in Steinbeck’s 1945 novel, Can-
nery Row, prepared his biological spec-
imens, and held his parties and salons.
The brothel across the street is gone,
as is the Chinese grocery where Ricketts
usually bought two quarts of beer in the
morning, and more throughout the day.
The working sardine canneries are gone
too, replaced by Cannery Row-themed
souvenir shops, restaurants and attrac-
tions. “Most tourists come here because
of Steinbeck and the book, and they walk
right past the lab,” says Shillinglaw, a
literary scholar, whose enthusiasm for
Steinbeck has never waned over three
decades of studying the author. “They
don’t know that this is the lab in the
book, or how important it was to Stein-
beck’s life and work. Ed Ricketts shaped
his thinking more than anyone.”
She leads me through the front door
into the room where Ricketts preserved
his “little beasties,” as he sometimes
called them, and entertained guests. Five
years older than Steinbeck, with a slim,
wiry build, and a gaunt, handsome face,
Ricketts had charisma and a saintly toler-
ance for most human foibles, although he
detested teetotalers and was horrifi ed by
old age. He was “libidinous as a goat,” in
Steinbeck’s phrase, and led many women
to his small, uncomfortable bed in the
back room. “Ed liked his women as com-
plicated as possible,” says Shillinglaw.
“If they were single and available with no
psychological problems, he wasn’t in-“His mind was kaleidoscopic.
He corresponded with scientists
all over the world, and he was
friends with all the bums and
prostitutes on Cannery Row.”
32 SMITHSONIAN.COM | September 2019