Two unemployed men search for work during the Depression and find themselves enjoying work on a farm despite the attitude of their supervisor's son; however, when that son's wife ends up as an innocent victim, the men are faced with difficult choices.

In depression-era California, two migrant workers dream of better days on a spread of their own until an act of unintentional violence leads to tragic consequences.

Includes a brief biography of John Steinbeck, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas.

"A biography of one of America's most popular and misunderstood authors, John Steinbeck. This first full-length biography of the Nobel Laureate to appear in a quarter century explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. His most poignant and evocative writing emerged in his sympathy for the Okies fleeing the dust storms of the Midwest, the migrant workers toiling in California's fields, and the laborers on Cannery Row, reflecting a social engagement-paradoxical for all of his natural misanthropy-radically different from the writers of the so-called Lost Generation. A man by turns quick-tempered, contrary, compassionate, and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck took aim at the corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality, and the growing urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive fierce public debate to this day"--

"From one of the world's foremost physicians and researchers, a monumental work that radically redefines our conventional conceptions of health and illness to offer new methods for living a long, healthy life."--