Thomas Fensch

Steinbeck's Bitter Fruit Thomas Fensch

In the 1930s, John Steinbeck published "In Dubious Battle," a novel based on union organizing and anti-union sentiment in the rich and fertile central valleys of California. He followed that with a series of articles in The San Francisco News, about poverty and starvation among the migrants in California. In 1939, he published "The Grapes of Wrath," which became an instant American classic and the premier moral vision of the 1930s. The themes were: homelessness; joblessness; poverty; starvation and the greed of the banks. Now, 73 years later, it is all back. Lost homes and lost jobs by the hundreds of thousands, poverty, starvation and the greed of the banks. Steinbeck's vision of the 1930s is with us again.