"Grapes of Wrath" Companion books and more!
Nonfiction
- Official companion book to California Stories: Reading the "Grapes of Wrath"
Steinbeck, John
"The Harvest Gypsies"
With an introduction by Charles Wollenberg
1996
Recently listed as one of the 100 best pieces of journalism in the 20th century. "Harvest Gypsies" contains seven newspaper articles John Steinbeck wrote on migrant farm workers for "The San Francisco News" in 1936, three years before "The Grapes of Wrath." With the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter and the emotional power of a novelist in his prime, Steinbeck toured the squatters' camps and Hoovervilles of California. Here he found once strong, independent farmers - the backbone of America - so reduced in dignity, beaten in spirit, sick, sullen and defeated that they had been "cast down to a kind of subhumanity." He contrasts their misery with the hope offered by government resettlement camps, where self-help committees, child nurseries, quilting and sewing projects and decent sanitation were restoring dignity and indeed saving lives.
"The Harvest Gypsies" gives us an eyewitness account of the Dust Bowl migration, and provides the factual foundation for Steinbeck's masterpiece, "The Grapes of Wrath." Included are 22 photographs by Dorothea Lange and others, many of which accompanied Steinbeck's original articles. - Benson, Jackson J.
"The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography."
Viking Press, 1984.
A definitive portrait of the celebrated and controversial author chronicles the events of Steinbeck's life, his formative development as a writer and his archetypical literary images of modern American culture. - de Graaf, Lawrence, Kevin Mulroy and Quintard Taylor, eds.
"Seeking El Dorado: African-Americans in California."
Autry Museum of Western Heritage and University of Seattle Press, 2001.
This collection of essays examines many aspects of the migration of African-Americans to California. - Ferris, Susan, Diana Hembree and Ricardo Sandoval, eds.
"The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement."
Harcourt Brace, 1997.
Photo-filled biography of the founder of the United Farm Workers, whose own family migrated to California after being forced from their Arizona home during the Depression and the great drought (see FILM AND VIDEO section for accompanying PBS documentary). - Gregory, James Noble.
"American Exodus: The Dust Bowl and Okie Culture in California."
Oxford University Press, 1989.
This study of the migration of Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans and Missourians to California during the Great Depression uses oral history collections, mimeographed newspapers from migrant labor camps and other primary source material to unearth grassroots attitudes and observations. - Haslam, Gerald.
"Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California."
University of California Press, 1999.
Beginning and ending with short, atmospheric essays set in Bakersfield (he is from nearby Oildale), Haslam charts the rise and fall of country music in California. - Kim, Elaine H. and Eui-Young Yu, eds.
"East to America: Korean American Life Stories."
The New Press, 1996.
Thirty powerful and candid interviews render a portrait of a Korean-American community grappling with racial tensions, class and gender differences, and differing notions of family and home. Foreword by Anna Deavere Smith. - McWilliams, Carey.
"Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California."
University of California Press, 2000.
This widely hailed expose of corporate agriculture in California was first published by Little, Brown in 1939, only two months after publication of "The Grapes of Wrath." California State Librarian Kevin Starr: "The exploitation of the migratory agricultural worker, masterfully fictionalized in John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath,' is equally masterfully told, chronologically and factually, by Carey McWilliams in this book." - McWilliams, Carey.
"North From Mexico: the Spanish-Speaking People of the United States."
Praeger, 1990.
Acclaimed writer's history of Spanish-speaking people in the Southwest United States (originally published in 1949) traces the evolution of Anglo-Hispanic relations in America as a case study in ethnic acculturation. - Martinez, Ruben.
"Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail."
Metropolitan Books, 2001.
A powerful account of migrant culture traces the Chavez family as they leave their southern Mexico town and embark on a perilous journey through the underground railroad to the tomato farms of Missouri, the strawberry fields of California and the slaughterhouses of Wisconsin. The family lost three sons in a 1996 border incident. - Masumoto, David.
"Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil."
W. W. Norton, 1998.
A Japanese-American farmer recounts the challenges of taking over and renewing his family's farm in DelRey, California, describing the pains and pleasures of farm work and the perseverance of his grandmother. - Matthiessen, Peter.
"Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution."
University of California Press, 2000.
Matthiessen's panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent traveling and working with Chavez. This new edition of the title originally published in 1969 includes a foreword by Ilan Stavans and a new postscript. - Monroy, Douglas.
"Rebirth: Mexican Los Angeles from the Great Migration to the Great Depression."
University of California Press, 1999.
Details the development of the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles and the surrounding agricultural areas of Southern California from the early 20th century to the late 1930s, a period during which approximately one-tenth of the population of Mexico immigrated to Southern California. A compelling account of the complex relationship of an immigrant people, the community they construct and the larger society to which they must relate. - O'Hearn, Claudien Shiawei, ed.
"Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural."
Pantheon Books, 1998.
A lively collection of essays on the theme of being biracial and bicultural in contemporary American society. Editor O'Hearn, herself born in Hong Kong and raised in Asia and Europe, has assembled a passionate and lively collection of essays by 18 authors. - Partridge, Elizabeth, ed.
"Dorothea Lange -- A Visual Life."
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.
This chronicle of the life and work of Dorothea Lange richly portrays one of America's most celebrated photographers through images of her work, her letters, journal entries and taped conversations, and in the words of seven essayists. - Partridge, Elizabeth, ed.
"This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie"
Viking, 2002.
The author of "Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange" shapes a lucid, affecting portrait of another indisputably restless spirit, the prolific songwriter and impassioned folksinger Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912-1967). Drawing from Guthrie's autobiographical writings and correspondence and from original interviews (with the singer's children Arlo and Nora, and Pete Seeger, among others), the author painstakingly charts his subject's itinerant, often troubled life. Tragedy often, eerily, in the form of devastating fire shadowed Guthrie from his childhood, when his mother, suffering from Huntington's Disease (which eventually ravaged the singer as well), was finally placed in a state hospital after setting her husband on fire. (Years later, Woody's four-year-old daughter died from severe burns.)
In chronicling Guthrie's cross-country ramblings and his relationships with his three wives, children and fellow musicians, Partridge offers intriguing insight into the singer as well as the creation of his songs. Background on political and social conflicts gives readers access to the issues that so frequently inspired Guthrie.
Ample quotations, excerpts from his lyrics, reproductions of his sketches and photographs infuse these pages with Guthrie's spontaneous and charismatic if erratic personality. A memorable biography of this talented artist and understated proponent of social change. - Pham, Andrew.
"Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Journey Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam."
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999.
As a child, Pham fled Vietnam with his family and settled in California. In his memoir (winner of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize) the young Vietnamese-American uses a bicycle journey in his homeland as a way to tell his eventful life story. - Rodriguez, Richard.
"Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez."
D.R. Godine, 1982.
The son of Mexican immigrants explores the educational process and rejects affirmative action and bilingualism as benign errors. - Soto, Gary.
"A Summer Life."
Dell, 1990.
A series of lyrically rendered, autobiographical short essays describes the gifted poet's Fresno boyhood in the 1950s and 1960s, drawing on universal themes of friendship, family and love. - Starr, Kevin.
"Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California."
Oxford University Press, 1996.
California State Librarian Starr's first-rate, vivid diorama of the varied events that formed and reformed California during the convulsive decade before WW II. - Stavans, Ilan.
"The Hispanic Condition: Reflections on Culture and Identity in America."
HarperCollins, 1995.
A Mexican-born novelist and critic examines the five major Hispanic groups in the United States -- including Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans -- describes their cultural characteristics and their eventual role in mainstream America. - Steinbeck, John.
"America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction."
Viking, 2002.
Steinbeck's last published work is available once again to celebrate the centenary of the author's birth. The book contains Steinbeck's finest journalistic endeavors, including his newspaper articles that inspired "The Grapes of Wrath;" his writings on San Francisco, Monterey and other locations; and his reflections on such friends as Henry Ford and Robert Capa. - Steinbeck, John; Peter Lisca and Kevin Hearle, eds.
"The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism."
Penguin USA, 1997.
Contains the text of the novel and includes essays on its social and literary context. - Zia, Helen.
"Asian-American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People." Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000.
A stirring account of the emergence of the "Asian-American" consciousness in America that explores the often tragic history that led to disparate groups of Asians seeing themselves as a single, cohesive ethnic community with political and social power.
Compiled by Laura Lent, San Francisco Public Library, with help from Felicia Harmer Kelley, California Council for the Humanities, Susan Goldstein, San Francisco Public Library, and Jeannine Cuevas, Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.