Scott Bradfield

No writer was better suited to chronicle the Depression than John Steinbeck

William Souder reminds us not only of Steinbeck’s empathy for the dispossessed but of how deeply he researched his novels, living for months in migrant camps

Steinbeck always expressed empathy for those sad, aspiring, doomed creatures that were so much like himself. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 28 November 2020

John Steinbeck didn’t believe in God — but he didn’t believe much in humanity either. When push came to shove, he saw people as cruel, selfish, dishonest, slovenly and, at their very best, outmatched by environmental forces. Like his friend, the biologist Ed Rickett, Steinbeck considered human beings to be no better and no worse than any community of organisms: they might aspire to do great things, but they always ultimately failed.

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