On Reading the Grapes of Wrath

In this compelling biography of a book, Shillinglaw delves five layers deep and more into The Grapes of Wrath by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck to explore the cultural, social, political, ecological, and creative impact as well as its enduring legacy. First published in April 1939, Steinbeck' Pulitzer Prize - and National Book Award-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. The story of their struggle remains eerily relevant today and stands as a portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, 'in the souls of the people.' One of today's foremost Steinbeck scholars writes an extended meditation on the influence of The Grapes of Wrath .