The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man's fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman's stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath...

I am convinced that at birth the cake is already baked. Nurture is the nuts or frosting, but if you’re a spice cake, you’re a spice cake, and nothing is going to change you into an angel food.
Tall, slender Violet Mathers is growing up in the Great Depression, which could just as well define her state of mind. Abandoned by her mother as a child, mistreated by her father, and teased by her schoolmates (“Hey, Olive Oyl, where’s...

When young Harry Crane stumbles upon a mutilated body in the local river bottoms, the region becomes trapped in a nightmare of fear and racial tension, as a vicious serial killer stalks the town.

"When a rainmaker is bludgeoned to death in the pitch-blackness of a colossal dust storm, small-town sheriff Temple Jennings shoulders yet another burden in the hard times of the 1930s Dust Bowl."--

It's 1935, and ever since the big crash and her father's subsequent suicide, Henrietta Von Harmon has been left with the job of caring for her antagonistic mother and seven younger siblings. In desperation, Henrietta finally agrees to take a job as a taxi dancer at a local dance hall. Just as she's beginning to enjoy herself, however, the floor matron suddenly turns up dead. When the aloof Inspector Howard appears on the scene to investigate, he persuades...

Taking a job as nurse to the local town doctor, newcomer April Asbury attracts the attention of Joe Jones, whose family is disrupted by an unstable widow's claims about the paternity of Joe's youngest sister.