Book
The Grapes of Wrath
Buy the book from:
Audio available
After leaving prison on parole, Tom Joad returns to Oklahoma and finds that drought, debt and mechanised agriculture have driven his family from their farm. The Joads join the migration west to California with former preacher Jim Casy, believing that advertised agricultural work will allow them to rebuild their lives. The road instead exposes them to bereavement, hunger and the constant risk of losing what little they possess.
In California, the family encounters overcrowded camps, falling wages, strikebreaking and hostility towards migrants, but also government camps and forms of collective support. Intercalary chapters widen the story beyond the Joads to show a social crisis produced by institutions as well as weather, turning one family’s journey into an argument about dignity, labour and solidarity during the Great Depression.
More by the author
Other books by John Steinbeck
