A warm, loosely plotted novel set in a run-down street of sardine canneries in Monterey, California, during the Depression and after. Its heroes are a band of easygoing drifters led by Mack, along with Doc, a kindly marine biologist, and shopkeepers and neighbours who share the street. When the men decide to throw a party for Doc, well-meant plans go comically astray. The book is a gentle celebration of friendship, generosity and ordinary lives lived outside the usual measures of success, mixing humour with quiet melancholy.
Quotes
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.