Response to Angel Lin’s Review of When Children Write

Abstract

I remember reading a book on the art of the novel, and remember being enraged by some of the author's comments on Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. He said that the book should have been the Great American Novel, but was not, because it was fatally flawed. It was fatally flawed because it was unbalanced. It was unbalanced because Steinbeck had not portrayed the rich with the same sort of detail and complexity that he had the poor. Across time, I have tried to figure out why I was so angered by this criticism. In part, I think I simply did not want anything bad said about a book I loved. (I am sure I loved it, in part, because Steinbeck's heroes were familiar-I grew up in northern Wisconsin, not Oklahoma, and my family and neighbors were certainly better off than the Joads. But they were recognizable: rural, farming, persevering.) But even more, my anger was fueled by the fact that this critic seemed to assume some sort of equal treatment of rich and poor in all the novels and books and movies that came before Grapes of Wrath. My question for the critic was: Why should Steinbeck lavish attention on the wealthy? They have received more than their fair share.