The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the
A Friend of the Family A Friend of the Family A Friend of the Family is a novel by Lauren Grodstein which takes place in the modern day suburbia of Northern New Jersey where the main character, Pete Dizinoff, a skilled internist, lives in a large house with his wife Elaine and son Alec. Pete's life begins to crumble when his best friend's daughter, Laura Stern, comes back into town years after a shocking crime and becomes involved with Pete's son, threatening Pete's plans for Alec. The main events of the novel occur between the years of 1993-2007, from Laura's neonaticide through Alec packing up