Dense, complex, rewarding. Steinbeck’s band of apres-Depression misfits each form an essential pillar in the community of Cannery Row, in Monterey, Calif.

A quick but tricky book. Occasional deviations into individual vignettes are intriguing, but difficult to decipher at times. But Steinbeck’s love for place and land–this book is almost a pastoral at times–is clear and joyful.

The plot is loose and centers around Mack and his group of down-and-out unemployed, scrappy rifraff, who have the best of intentions but drunkenly screw everything up. You always see it coming. Sometimes it involves trapping frogs. It always involves booze.

Each individual character adds to the tight sense of community. Dora, vibrant madam; Doc, the intellectual, lonely marine biologist; Lee Chong and his center-of-the-little-universe grocery.

Cannery Row is a paean to the Monterey collective consciousness, the little joys of life, the quick shocks of violence and the meaning of place.