John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is arguably the most important single work in the literature of California. Other major writers have lived in California, or written about California, but Steinbeck was at once a native Californian, and a writer who chose California settings for much of his work. Whether or not The Grapes of Wrath is his greatest book is a matter for literary critics, but it is certainly his best-known work. If we were to perform a word-association test, it is probable that more people would associate Steinbeck's name with this book than with any other single work--perhaps more than would name all the rest of his work together.
The following discussion considers The Grapes of Wrath not as a work of literature, but as a work of history, specifically of California history. The Joad family is a fictional creation, but the dust bowl was historical, the Okie migration was historical, and the action of the novel represents and takes place against historical events in the California of the 1930s. These events have in turn continued to resonate in California history from that time to the present.
Yet the California that appears in The Grapes of Wrath is not one that readily fits the image of California, either as that image is presented to the world or indeed as it is held by most Californians themselves. The Grapes of Wrath is, in an odd way, almost disconnected from California, even though much of the book takes place there. The city of Salinas, where John Steinbeck was born, may now proclaim itself "Steinbeck Country" for the sake of the tourist trade, but The Grapes of Wrath was long an unwelcome book there. It is rather characteristic that one history of Monterey, which includes sections on Salinas and the Salinas Valley, mentions Steinbeck twice, in neither case with any reference to his best-known work.
Salinas has in fact little enough reason to own up to Steinbeck; indeed, Salinas i...