I've never heard of or read that book either. My father was a casual friend of Steinbeck's, being a member of a writer's group that would meet occasionally at Steinbeck's place in Monterey. I "met" both Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts at at least one of these meetings when I was a baby. According to my mom, the wives/girlfriends of the writers would hang out in the kitchen while the writers talked and argued about stuff in the other part of the house. Ed apparently wasn't much interested in what John and the other writers were talking about so he hung out in the kitchen, too.