I can’t beieve this Steinbeck gem has eluded me for all these years. I really thought I had read all of his ‘mainstream’ novels. So, it was a pleasant surprise when I came across this book in a dollar book sale earlier this spring. The Wayward Bus is one of his later novels, published in 1947.
In a feature advertisement in the back of the book (from Bantam Books, with prices all the way up to 75 cents!) :
When John Steinbeck writes about people, they come alive. The reader knows how they look, how they think, how they act and how they feel. He knows all their longings, their lusts, their passions and their innermost secrets. And, he becomes a part of some of the most moving fictional experiences of our time.
I found this to be a starkly honest story, even for Steinbeck. Straight to my list of book favourites!
The Prairie Fiddler 