The Wayward Bus
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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“A visitor of another species might judge … that the seat of procreation lay in the mammaries.” |
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The Wayward Bus is a novel by American author John Steinbeck, originally published in 1947. The novel's epigraph is a passage from 15th-century English play Everyman, with its archaic English intact; the quotation refers to the transitory nature of humanity. Although considered one of Steinbeck's weaker novels at the time of its original publication, The Wayward Bus was financially more successful than any of his previous works.
Steinbeck dedicated this novel to "Gwyn", thought to be a reference to his second wife Gwyndolyn Conger. The couple divorced less than a year after the book was published.
Plot summary
No single character dominates The Wayward Bus. The viewpoint shifts frequently from one character to another, often taking the form of internal monologue so that we are experiencing a given character's thoughts. Much of the novel's length is simply devoted to establishing and delineating the various characters.
This novel takes place firmly within the "Steinbeck country" of California's Salinas Valley (although the three primary locations described are all fictional): most of the narrative occurs at Rebel Corners, a crossroads 42 miles south of a San Ysidro, California that is described as being north of Los Angeles.
