The Grapes of Wrath

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The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
1939

The Summary
The Grapes of Wrath, simply put, tells the story of the Joad family and their desperate journey to California.  After being forced off of their land by the owner, who sold his land to a bank, who in turn sold it to a corporation - and so on and so forth.  It's a never ending cycle - the Joad family moves west, hoping to find work (as promised in the pamphlet they discovered) and start a new life.

The Good
While the novel is primarily concerned with the Joad family and their flight across the country, several chapters - let's call them "bridge chapters," for the sake of being concise - describe the overall experience of the families forced to flee their homes.  These "bridge chapters" not only connect the Joad family to the larger, collective experience of these migrant people, but they also introduce the reader to a more intimate portrait of the suffering, terror, and desperation these people felt and experienced, during this great and terrible time.

While Steinbeck's novel isn't "delightful," it certainly has the qualities of a page turner.  It will keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering if the family will make it, if they will endure, and if they will make a home in California - if they can ever survive the journey.  On some level, this book will make you hope there is such a thing as happily-ever-after.

But, whether you find a happy ending, or not, is really up to you.

The Bad
This is a book that will break your heart, and then it will come back and stomp it into the dirt.

As Steinbeck once wrote in a letter to his publisher, "I am not writing a satisfying story.  I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.  And still one more thing - I've tried to write this book the way lives are lived not the way books are written."

The Ugly
The story of the Joad family occurs during a particularly chaotic time in American history.  It is a decade, when stock markets have crashed and banks have gone under; when dust has choked nearly half the country; when war - or an eviction notice - looms on the horizon, like the dusts of Oklahoma and Arkansas; when economic hardship has become the norm and exploitation of the poor, weak, and desperate happens regularly.

People suffer.  People die.  People are treated as less than human - and may become less than human through the fear and loathing of others, and under their own desperation.

In short, you - and the Joads - will be faced with tragedy again and again.