CANNERY ROW by JOHN STEINBECK

This vignette of the lives and trails of an American Factory Community was published as WW2 was drawing to a close.It was based on Monterry Califrornia , a place very familiar to Steinbeck.

It features very ordinary characters at a time when America was approaching an age when things for small community America would never be the same again.This very intelligent review by Thom Hartmann paints an interesting scene of the subtly changing political landscape as these people got on with the hard day-to-day business of coping in an inceasingly harsh environment.

"On the other hand, one could argue that the book is entirely political - today - because it shows us a slice of America before the Great Corporate Homogenizers got ahold of us.

Before we walled ourselves into our highly-mortgaged houses to stare for hours, alone, at our TVs, eating the mental gruel of multinational corporations who profit from wars.

Before our highest ideal - our "American Dream" - was to build up a small business so we could sell it off to Disney, as did the woman Bush congratulated in his State of the Union speech, but when the real American Dream was grounded in community, safety, friendship, and a healthy acceptance of eccentricity."

The review in the video below gives an ample example of the appeal of this novel for the new reader.