This was an amazing read. It follows generations of two families in California’s Salinas Valley from the Civil War era into the early twentieth century — and underneath the family saga is a sustained meditation on the nature of good and evil.
The central idea — timshel, “thou mayest” — is that humans have the choice to overcome their nature. Not that they will. Not that it’s easy. Just that the choice exists. Steinbeck builds the entire novel around this single Hebrew word, and by the time it pays off at the end, it hits like a freight train.
Samuel Hamilton is one of the great characters in American literature — funny, wise, generous, and ultimately tragic. The Trask brothers’ story is a retelling of Cain and Abel, and Steinbeck doesn’t flinch from making it dark.
The prose is unhurried. If you need plot momentum, this will test your patience. But if you can settle into the rhythm, there’s a depth here that most novels don’t even attempt.
Read it if: You want a novel that takes the problem of evil seriously and still believes in human agency. Skip it if: You need things to happen faster than one generation at a time.