` To the red country & part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, & they did not cut the scarred earth.` Drought & economic depression are driving thousands from Oklahoma. As their land becomes just another strip in the dust bowl, the Joads, a family of sharecroppers, decide they have no choice but to follow. They head west, towards California, where they hope to find work & a future for their family. But while the journey to this promised land will take its inevitable toll, there remains uncertainty about what awaits their arrival.. . Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Grapes of Wrath is an epic human drama. Of this novel, Steinbeck himself said: `I`ve done my damndest to rip a reader`s nerves to rags, I don`t want him satisfied.`