The Grapes of Wrath

Oh Lord. A wretched story of endless heartache, poverty and migration. This dense classic follows the Joad family as they get “tractored” off their Dust Bowl Oklahoma farm in 1930-something, and then cobble together everything they have to pile onto a dilapidated truck (a “jalopy”) to head west (AT THIRTY-FIVE MILES AN HOUR, IS NOTHING EASY FOR THESE PEOPLE AGHH) - to California, the land of milk and honey and lots of fruit picking, the land of their hopes and dreams. It's hard going all the way there, with bigotry and death and genuine fears that they'll break down in the desert, and - of course - it's awful when they do get there, since 300,000 other people had the same idea. This story basically watches this family get squished under the heel of the Great Depression; slowly coming apart, with no good options, constantly on the move, chasing tiny tendrils of hope before despair slowly swallows them up, one by one.

Honestly, this made me feel awful to read. And it was startling how much I had detached “Americanness” from poverty of this kind: this felt like the stories of wretched poverty and migration during India and Pakistan's Partition; it felt like a version of this is what Syrian refugee families are going through. It felt “foreign”, and yet - this was pre-WWII America. Amazing. It sort of gives you a perverse sense of hope: of what transformative changes could happen in other places.

Powerful, amazing. I thought I “understood” the Depression, but I really, really didn't until I read this.