True story behind Netflix’s East of Eden, as it’s inspired by John Steinbeck’s real family

John Steinbeck took loads of inspiration from his own family when he wrote the novel, so how much of East of Eden is true?

With Netflix bringing East of Eden to the screen, people are wondering how much of the story is actually based on real life. The series, starring Florence Pugh, is adapted from John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, one of his most personal works. Set mainly in California’s Salinas Valley, it follows two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, across several generations.

At the centre of the story are the Trask brothers, Adam and Charles, and later Adam’s twin sons, Cal and Aron. Their complicated relationships are Steinbeck’s own version of the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

But there is another family running alongside all of this: The Hamiltons.

So, are the Hamiltons real?

Yes, the Hamiltons were heavily inspired by Steinbeck’s real family, and some of the characters were his actual relatives. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas, California, and his mother’s family, the Hamiltons, had deep roots in the area. When he wrote East of Eden, he used their family history, stories and personalities as part of the novel.

Samuel Hamilton, the kind-hearted inventor and farmer in East of Eden, was based directly on Steinbeck’s maternal grandfather. He even uses his real grandfather’s name. The real Samuel Hamilton was an Irish immigrant who settled in California. Steinbeck remembered him as an intelligent, inventive man who worked hard but never became wealthy.

Liza Hamilton, Samuel’s wife, was also real. She was Steinbeck’s maternal grandmother, and Steinbeck kept her real name in the novel too. She is portrayed as extremely religious, strict and practical, which is very different from Samuel’s more gentle personality.

Olive Hamilton was based on Steinbeck’s own mother, Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. The real Olive was a schoolteacher, and Steinbeck clearly had a lot of respect for her intelligence, determination and strong personality. He admitted that writing about his mother was difficult because, as he put it, “We cannot know objectively about one who is so close.”

Did Steinbeck’s mum really fly a plane?

Yes, there really was an aeroplane story involving Steinbeck’s mother. During the First World War, Olive became involved in selling Liberty Bonds, which were used to help finance the American war effort.

In East of Eden, Steinbeck turns his mother into something of a one-woman war campaign. After a local man named Martin Hopps was killed, Olive became furious with Germany.

Steinbeck writes, “When they killed Martin Hopps they lost the war because that made my mother mad.”

He then says that Olive “declared war on the German Empire.”

The novel has her take a flight in an aeroplane and perform stunts in the air before landing and getting straight back to selling Liberty Bonds. The basic family story is real, although Steinbeck clearly turns it into a funny and exaggerated literary episode.

The point of the story is more that Steinbeck remembered his mother as someone with a lot of nerve and determination.

Were the Trasks real?

Unlike the Hamiltons, the Trasks were fictional. Adam, Charles, Cathy, Cal and Aron were created by Steinbeck for the novel. Their story is based heavily on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Adam and Charles represent one generation of brothers, while Cal and Aron repeat that conflict in the next.

The Trasks are the fictional family he created to explore ideas about jealousy, family, good and evil, and whether people are actually trapped by the circumstances they are born into.

Cathy Ames, played by Florence Pugh in Netflix’s adaptation, was also fictional. There is no confirmed real-life woman who Steinbeck identified as the inspiration for Cathy. And Cathy is so extreme that it would be difficult to describe her as a straightforward portrait of anyone Steinbeck knew.

She is manipulative, violent and calculating, and eventually becomes the owner of a brothel. Steinbeck described her as a “psychic monster” in the novel.

But there has been speculation about whether parts of Cathy were influenced by Steinbeck’s second wife, Gwyn Conger. Steinbeck and Gwyn were married from 1943 to 1948, and East of Eden was written a few years after their divorce. Some biographical and academic accounts have pointed to similarities between Cathy and Steinbeck’s feelings about that marriage. But it’s not confirmed.

Was John Steinbeck actually in the story?

Sort of. The narrator of East of Eden is actually named John Steinbeck. He openly talks about his own family and childhood, particularly when he is describing the Hamiltons.

In Journal of a Novel, Steinbeck wrote, “In a sense it will be two books, the story of my country and the story of me.”

And that pretty much explains East of Eden. It isn’t a true story, but loads of its most personal details came from Steinbeck’s real life.

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