This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel follows the Joad family, once farmers in Oklahoma, as they make the desperate trek across the country to the "promised land" of California during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Saved more than once by the kindness of strangers, the Joads grapple with hunger, poverty, and even death on their journey, caught in the widening gap between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Steinbeck intercuts the family's saga with poetic interludes detailing the larger forces at work against the migrants, offering a visceral and moving look at this tumultuous period of American history.