This novel reads like a horror novel. In chapter 16, an angry man at a campsite tries to warn the Joads of the troubles in California. “Took two kids dead, took my wife dead to show me,” he says. “I can’t tell ya about them little fellas layin’ in the tent with their bellies puffed out an’ jus’ skin in their bones, an’ shiverin’ an’ whinin’ like pups.” We’ve all seen pictures of starving children before, but they’re not from America. They’re from places like Sudan. Or Yemen. Or Venezuela. Never America. Even after reading this book, it’s almost impossible to imagine that the Great Depression actually happened. And the event is not blameless.

This is one of the weirdest “great American novels” I’ve ever read. The Grapes of Wrath isn’t just critical—it’s straight up anti-America. Steinbeck takes every crime in American history and magnifies it so that we can see the real suffering it causes. Mass incarceration. Starvation. Poverty. Racism. Xenophobia. Slavery.

And if America is the villain of this novel, then capitalism is its weapon. Capitalism is what caused the Great Depression. Capitalism is what forced the Joads off their farm, created unlivable wages, and killed Rosasharon’s baby.

The Grapes of Wrath asks a lot of questions. Why should one man get to have one million of acres of land, while thousands of men of nothing? Why do we hate the poor and weak? Why do we rally against people that look and talk and dress differently? Unfortunately, America hasn’t yet answered these questions. The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1940, yet almost eighty years later, we’re still left to grapple with the horrors.