The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

From Goodreads

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

My thoughts

This was my local Library Reading group read.  To be honest it is not a book that I would've picked up off the shelf to read.

But ~ WOW what a read it was.  The author takes the reader on one hell of an arduous journey with the characters as they fight to survive all that is thrown at them both personally and financially during the  Great Depression.  Portraying well the differences between the rich and poor. 

Bleak, descriptive and very long.  This is a journey you won't want to miss.  All I can say is, please read it.  I am so glad that I did.

Quote

'    And in the south he saw the golden  oranges hanging on the trees, the little golden oranges on the dark green trees; and guards with shotguns patrolling the lines so a man might not pick an orange for a thin child, oranges to be dumped if the price was low.

   He drove his old car into a town.  He scoured the farms for work.  Where can we sleep the night?

  Well there's Hooverville on the edge of the river.  There's a whole raft of Okies there.

  He drove his old car to Hooverville.  He never asked again. for there's a Hooverville on the edge of every town.

  The rag town lay close to water; and the houses were tents, and weed-thatched enclosures, paper houses, a great junk pile.  The man drove his family in and became a citizen of Hooverville - always  they were called Hooverville.'

 This reminds me of a song called Hooverville by The Christians.

the christians hooverville lyrics - Google Search

The Christians - Hooverville (They Promised Us The World) - YouTube