“The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is said to be the story of a family. Comment.”
That was the challenge put to author William LeRoy on a high school exam. Now, over sixty years later, LeRoy — still stumped by questions leading to questions — assigns to Maximo Morgan the private dickery task of doping out multiple Grapes mysteries left dangling”
Formatted as a combination of fact and fiction, which is which in the famous book? Are chapters billed as history really apochryphal, ad/or those seemingly imagined in truth documentary?
Who, if any particular people, were the models for the “Joad Family” that made the arduous trek from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to the verdant vineyards of California so dramatically depicted in The Grapes of Wrath?
Did “Tom Joad” escape capture after attempting to flee a muder charge for the killing of a thug hired by landowners to bust unionization of migrant “Okie” workers?
And was it Steinbeck who came up with the narrative for which he was awarded the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, or would his attributed authorship be rightly called “a classic smash-and-grab: celebrated California author steals the material of unknown Oklahoma writer”?
Finally, on the 85th anniversary of the publication of Grapes, William LeRoy — thanks to somewhat helpful gumshoing by Maximo Morga a/k/a The Fat Man — is now able to comment.