A lifelong heavy drinker with his most famous novel well behind him, Steinbeck set out to write a mythic version of his family's American experience that would embody the whole story of the U.S.'s lost innocence and possible redemption. There are infelicities on almost every page, and the fact that the book succeeds brilliantly anyway is a testament to the power of Steinbeck's storytelling: to his ferocious will to make sense of his life and his country.