Steigerwald is a well-traveled journalist and veteran libertarian columnist. He also exposed the half-century-old myths of “Travels With Charley,” ruffled the PhDs of the country’s top Steinbeck scholars and forced “Charley’s” publisher to finally tell the truth.

He didn’t just reaffirm his faith in America to withstand the long train of abuse from Washington and Wall Street, however. Despite the Great Recession and national headlines dripping with gloom and doom, Steigerwald discovered an America along the Steinbeck Highway that was big, empty, rich, safe, clean, prosperous and friendly. Chasing and fact-checking Steinbeck’s ghost for 11,276 miles and 43 days, meeting hundreds of ordinary Americans, often sleeping in the back of his car in Wal-Mart parking lots, he drove from Maine to California to Texas. Steigerwald made his own road trip exactly 50 years after Steinbeck did. It was a deceptive and dishonest account of the great novelist’s actual road trip. “Travels With Charley” was not just full of fiction. Steinbeck’s iconic nonfiction book was a fraud. But when the intrepid ex-newspaperman from Pittsburgh started researching Steinbeck’s trip he uncovered a shocking literary scoop. He’d simply retrace the 10,000-mile route John Steinbeck took around the USA in 1960 for his beloved bestseller “Travels With Charley.” Then he’d compare the America he saw with the country Steinbeck described in his classic road book. Bill Steigerwald had a brilliant plan for showing how much America has changed in the last half century - or so he thought.

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