I read this book twice and intend to read it again. The first time was when I was 10. It, along with Tobacco Road (Erskine Caldwell) was forbidden me as unfit literature for children (my mother was an avid reader, but she protected my childhood as long as she dared) so naturally, it became my goal to find where she had hidden them, and read both, which I did, having wasted nearly all of one summer looking for them. Finding them buried deep beneath some old clothes in her large Cedar chest, I curled up on the old sofa beneath the sunny kitchen window where the yellow June blooming roses were alive and vocal with the buzzing of bees, eagerly opened the pages and began to read........

This book, obviously, parallels the story of Caine and Abel in many mortal ways. It's an incredible tale of betrayal, that I understand had roots in truth, woven around the totally depraved character of one woman, who, though amply endowed with charm, intelligence and ambition, it's but an outward veneer, and she is without the things that make such a person whole - conscience, loyalty, mother love, or any other human emotion that separates us from the primitive - and gets what she wants by using others. Killing someone is not something she worries much about.

This woman, taken in by the Trask brothers after being found nearly beaten to death on their doorstep, marries one, beds the other and bears two boys who are by the brother not married to - twins - just before she leaves the good man who thinks he is their father - from her childbed, without a backward look. The story gets better and more incredulous with each passing page. You are given insight into any number of human conditions, characters, motivations, and finally, betrayal of yet another trust between brothers.

It's one of Steinbeck's best works. He is a master of the written word - one who can pull you into the story even if you come from a different world than the one you are in as his fascinated reader - and ask you to feel it move you all the way there and back. There are these others by Steinbeck that number among my favorite reads and grace my personal library:

"Grapes of Wrath"
"Cannery Row"
"The Red Pony" which is an unusual story about a young boy and his horse - of a love lost, but with responsibility and maturity painfully gained - book from my youth, but which is much more than a child's story.