The Palace Flophouse and Lee Chong’s grocery store aren’t the only notable landmarks in Cannery Row. With this, Mack and his friends move into the storehouse and name it the Palace Flophouse, and Lee Chong never receives a cent. Lee gives Mack what he wants, but not before setting the price at five dollars. Lee realizes he has no choice but to allow these men to move in, since he knows that if he refuses, they will break the windows themselves to prove that he should let them live there. Having heard about this, Mack asks Lee if he and his friends can move into the storehouse, pointing out that if the building is unoccupied, teenagers might break the windows or set it on fire. As such, he signed ownership of his fishmeal storehouse to Lee, left the grocery store, and committed suicide. The day he killed himself, Horace came into Lee’s store and told him he wanted to settle his outstanding debt. Because of this, Lee is unsurprised when Mack comes in one day after a local man named Horace Abbeville commits suicide. In particular, Mack and his group of drifter friends often visit and try to convince Lee to give them pints of whiskey, though they never have money. Lee’s store is a cultural hub, as everyone does their shopping amongst his crowded shelves. Steinbeck describes the landmarks of Cannery Row, calling attention to a squalid but efficient grocery store run by Lee Chong. Although there are too many narrative moments to detail here, the following storylines are the most cohesive and important threads of Cannery Row. Wondering how he can accurately portray what it’s like to live in this place, Steinbeck decides to simply “let the stories crawl in by themselves,” thus beginning a collection of loosely related vignettes.

Cannery Row is a street populated by canning factories in Monterey, California.

Cannery row novel