20th Century Wayward Bus (Paperback)

There's a half Mexican driver/mechanic, his acne inflicted young helper, his wife the depressed cafe manager and the Hollywood dreamer waitress who populate the bus station-cafe where most of the book transpires.

Added to these are a successful businessman, his frigid controlling wife and their college sexual daughter, a stripper, a salesman and a complaining curmudgeon.

Only Steinbeck could flesh out their portraits so well and make their interactions so believable. Every character is a comment on a group or facet of America a few years after WWII. However, all the characters and their representative groups could be put into today's society. That is why this book ages so very well.

The writing is a joy to read. The descriptions are so good you can see every character as if you were in the cafe or on the bus. I will also go so far as to say there is a little bit of every character - good and bad - in each of us, which makes them all so familiar.

I strongly recommend this book. It is a wonderful piece of American writing and it portrays a truly realistic slice of Americana.

I found it interesting that in his 1962 Nobel Prize acceptance speech Steinbeck said, "The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement." Certainly, he lived up to this commission completely with "The Wayward Bus."

Take a small corner cafe, dependent on the intersection of two highways, one of which leads south to Los Angeles. It is post war, and times have not been easy with rationing, economic and personal stresses on everyone. The wayward bus links small town with big town, and therein lies the stage for a group of passengers, bus drivers, waitresses and mechanics that move the story forward with insightful urgency that only Steinbeck can pull off. The current paperback book cover portrays Joan Collins in the late 1950's as Alice, slumped forward over a glass of whiskey in the cafe table booth, despising herself and her life. On the bus are a group of people that are together only by chance and the luck of the draw. The story reveals what happens when this incompatible group of people are confronted with a broken down bus in a rain storm. They lust and hate each other. The use and abuse each other. They love and forget each other, but will they ever forgive what happens when fatigue and compromise break down all their defenses and expose themselves for the true persons they are?
The uniqueness of _The Wayward Bus_ is that this story reveals an intriguing denotation of the 1940's post war attitude and social beliefs from a cast of characters that will keep the pages turning. Amazingly, I found these characters to be just as relevant today as Steinbeck portrayed them in the 1940's. Not only can this author grasp the soul of characters and depict them for the reader, he has an ability to unite land and story.
I have been drawn to Steinbeck for years, and recently I have made efforts to read most of his work. This book was not really known to me, unlike many of his novels which are discussed frequently in reader's circles. This novel seemed so fresh to me, and with some imagination I can wonder of it's reception upon the initial publication. This is a novel that certainly raised more than a few eyebrows!