Cannery Row

Frankie hears about Doc’s party and wants to get Doc a clock decorated with bronze figurines of St. George killing the dragon. Frankie looks at this clock through the window for several days and eventually goes into Jacob’s Jewelry Store. When Mr. Jacobs tells him that it costs $75, Frankie becomes upset. He spends the day sitting under an overturned rowboat on the beach and walks around Alvarado Street that night.

At 2:30am, Frankie breaks the store window with a piece of concrete and tries to steal the clock with the figurines. However, the police catch him easily, and the chief calls his mother. His mother tells the chief to call Doc, and Doc comes into the police station. There, Doc asks the police to parole Frankie to him and offers to pay for the clock. The police say that Frankie should be in a psychiatric hospital because of his intellectual disabilities. Doc asks Frankie why he stole the clock, and Frankie only replies that he loves Doc. Doc leaves that police station and goes to collect specimens at Point Lobos.

On October 27, the day Doc claimed was his birthday, the party preparations continue. Doc finishes bottling jellyfish at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and locks up expensive items in the back room. He plays various records, showers, dresses, and drinks coffee. He then walks to Lee’s store and buys some beer.

Meanwhile, Mack and his friends plan to arrive at Doc’s after 8 o’clock that evening. They think Doc doesn’t know about the surprise party and decide to tell him about the cats they trapped rather than bring them to the laboratory. The residents of the Palace Flophouse begin drinking. The unnamed Chinese immigrant marks time, walking by the Palace at 5:30pm, and slips between the laboratory and the Hediondo.

At the Bear Flag, the sex workers arrange to visit the party in shifts of an hour each so that some are available to help customers throughout the night. The narrator describes Dora’s hair and outfit for the party and the dresses that the other women wear. While working, they’ll wear long formal dresses, and when going to the party, they’ll wear short casual dresses. They put the finished quilt in a box. Dora starts drinking, and this is the cue for other women to start drinking in preparation for the party. Phyllis Mae thinks Doc doesn’t know the party is happening and talks to Doris about how Doc isn’t a patron of the Bear Flag.

Dora comes out of her office and talks to Alfred, whom she previously asked to stay at the Bear Flag all night. When he agrees to this condition, she relents and says he can watch the Bear Flag from the window of the laboratory later that night for a little while. He appreciates this and agrees to stop by for a few minutes. He also admits that he’s concerned about having broken a customer’s back. Dora offers to give him some time off work, suggesting that Mack fill in for him.

Doc switches to drinking whiskey after a couple beers and plays more records, like Pavane for a Dead Princess and Moonlight Sonata, while reading Daphnis and Chloe. The lights of La Ida and the Bear Flag come on, marking time. The narrator describes animals like beetles and a cat at this hour. Mr. Malloy looks out of his boiler to see if the party has started. Mack and his friends watch the clock.

This chapter begins with a discussion about parties in general—they each have their own individual character and are subject to change. The narrator condemns over-planned parties run by professional hostesses. While the people on Cannery Row expect the party to be exciting, it starts off slowly and formally. Mack and his friends arrive at 8 o’clock. They tell Doc about the cats, and he feigns surprise.

Doc offers them some of his whiskey, turning down Eddie’s jugs collected from the bar. Dora arrives with some of the sex workers, and they give Doc the quilt; he compliments their work. Mr. Malloy gives him the car parts, explaining their worth, and Henri arrives with his pincushion art piece. The party gradually becomes less formal. Lee gives Doc his gifts, and other people arrive from La Ida. Doc puts on a dance record and cooks the food he bought.

A fight breaks out when a person who came from La Ida makes a lewd comment to one of the sex workers. Mack and his friends get him outside without breaking anything. As Doc continues to cook, Mack watches over the record player, and people dance. After Doc serves the food, the party takes on a “rich digestive sadness” (174). Doc serves wine, and Dora asks him to play different music. Doc puts on Monteverdi and reads part of the poem “Black Marigolds” by Bilhana Kavi, translated by E. Powys Mathers. Phyllis Mae and Dora cry. Hazel is entranced by the sounds of the poem. Mack and everyone else recall a lost lover.

After the poetry recitation, the party seems about to wind down until a group of fishermen arrives, thinking that the laboratory is the Bear Flag. Mack tells them that they’re mistaken, but they point to the sex workers at the party as proof. A fight breaks out. The women hit the fishermen with their high heels, Dora uses a meat grinder, and Doc fights with the car parts. The fishermen throw books. Alfred arrives and uses an indoor ball bat. The front door breaks again, and the fight spills out into the street.

Once the fishmen are expelled, the rest of the people hide, with the lights off, from the cop car passing along the street. Different women from the Bear Flag arrive, and the others go back to work. The cops come back because of the noise and join the party. Mack and his friends steal the cop car to get more alcohol. The fishermen come back peacefully and are welcomed. When a woman down the street tries to call the cops, she can’t reach them at the station because they’re at the party. Someone lights Lee’s firecrackers.

This chapter turns the attention to a gopher living on the lot near Palace Flophouse. The gopher chooses this location because of the mallow weeds and nature of the earth. The narrator describes the gopher in detail, including how he creates a burrow where he can store food and his process of storing food. The location is ideal because of its beauty and its lack of predators and traps. The gopher hopes to raise a family on the lot but can’t find a female gopher there.

He travels across the track and finds another gopher hole, which smells of a female gopher. After he squeaks at the hole’s entrance, another male gopher emerges. The two fight, and the original gopher is wounded. He must retreat to his burrow in the vacant lot. After he heals, he still can’t find a female gopher in this location, so he moves to a garden two blocks away where there are traps.

The final chapter describes the aftermath of the party in the laboratory. Doc wakes up, first seeing the quilt and then seeing the dishes all over the floor and table, as well as the books scattered across the floor. He also sees the remains of the firecrackers, the mess in the kitchen, and other detritus from the party.

Doc looks out on the quiet morning on Cannery Row outside his window. He takes a shower and gets dressed, noticing the mess along the way. He goes to Lee’s store; it’s closed, but Lee opens the door and gets him some beer even before he asks for it. Doc confirms that he had a good time at the party when Lee asks.

Back at the laboratory, Doc drinks some beer and eats a sandwich. He hears calming music in his mind and begins to clean up, gathering glasses and washing them in soapy water. He takes a break and puts on a record of Gregorian music. When the music stops, he takes another break and sees the book from the night before partially under his bed. He reads a few more stanzas of “Black Marigolds,” as the narrator describes the soapy water inside and the ocean at the pier outside.

Doc puts away the book and listens to the ocean and the laboratory rats. He composes and recites a stanza of poetry about his experience, following the structure of Bilhana Kavi’s translated poem. The novel ends by describing the rats and rattlesnakes in the laboratory.