Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath

by Wartzman, Rick

• ISBN13: 9781586483319
• ISBN10: 1586483315
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck'sThe Grapes of Wrath, when it was published in April 1939. By May, it was the nation's number one bestseller, but in Kern County, Californiathe Joads' newfound homethe book was burned publicly and banned from library shelves.Obscene in the Extremetells the remarkable story behind this fit of censorship.When W. B. "Bill" Camp, a giant cotton and potato grower, presided over its burning in downtown Bakersfield, he declared: "We are angry, not because we were attacked but because we were attacked by a book obscene in the extreme sense of the word." But Gretchen Knief, the Kern County librarian, bravely fought back. "If that book is banned today, what book will be banned tomorrow?"Obscene in the Extremeserves as a window into an extraordinary time of upheaval in Americaa time when, as Steinbeck put it, there seemed to be "a revolution . . . going on."

Author Biography

Rick Wartzman is director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University and an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He spent two decades as a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He is co-author, with Mark Arax, of the award-winning bestseller The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire.

Table of Contents

Dark Days	p. 1
Monday	p. 41
Tuesday	p. 69
Wednesday	p. 109
Thursday	p. 149
Friday, Saturday, Sunday	p. 181
Some Day	p. 211
Acknowledgments	p. 231
Notes	p. 233
Bibliography	p. 285
Index	p. 293
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