re: Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

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I have enjoyed reading all of Steinbeck’s works and particularly liked East of Eden, The Long Valley, and Tortilla Flats. However, one needs to be aware of the fact that the author was literally a card carrying communist. Ironically, his son served in Vietnam.

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He broke with the Party pretty early on and was never actually a card-carrying member of the party. There were lots of card-carrying communists back then (and I would argue they were often the "good guys" at that point in time). Later, as the USSR became obviously corrupt and China the same, communisum became a much more dubious ideology to champion.

He was friends with LBJ and supported the Vietnam war publically (though supposedly felt conflicted about it personally... but so did a lot of America).