A novel of the Great Depression following the Joad family, tenant farmers driven from their land in Oklahoma by drought, debt and changes in farming. Packing what they can into an old truck, they head west along Route 66 toward California, hoping for work and a decent life. What they meet instead is suspicion, low pay and hunger. Steinbeck alternates the family's story with broader chapters about the migration as a whole. The book is a portrait of resilience, family loyalty and the struggle for fair treatment, and it remains one of the defining American novels of the twentieth century.
Quotes
I gotta see them folks that’s gone out on the road. I got a feelin' I got to see them. They gonna need help no preachin' can give 'em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain’t lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an’ sad?
Grampa walked up and slapped Tom on the chest, and his eyes grinned with affection and pride. "How are ya, Tommy?""O.K.," said Tom. "How ya keepin' yaself?""Full a piss an' vinegar," said Grampa.
The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.
To California or any place - every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day - the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it.