Steinbeck’s last novel—and unlike any of his previous books. The action takes place in an old New England town. The hero is the offspring of the town’s founders, a well-established man—in other words, an average decent American. In those years, Steinbeck worried about the decline of morals in the country and the absence of a worthy goal, and in his novel he frankly showed how the American way of life shapes an ordinary decent bourgeois, pushing him along the path of betrayal and crime in pursuit of wealth.
Pascal Covici: “…There is not a single pinch of hope in the book—and it shouldn’t be there. It overturns reverence for so-called virtue, for success, for the American way of life. Few writers attacked these American concepts with such force. In this decade, no one—except you—tried to do it… You wrote a great book, John, and may God help you.”
Author: “…A bad novel should entertain readers, an average one should affect their feelings, and the best one should light the way for them. I don’t know whether my novel will manage to fulfill even one of these tasks, but my goal is to light the way…”