California Shame
Explore 'California Shame'—a curated list of books exposing the dark and controversial sides of California. Uncover hidden truths, scandals, and untold stories about the Golden State.
Book
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
The saga of a family in 1939 that struggles through the Great Depression by laboring as Dust Bowl migrants.
Book
The Octopus
by Frank Norris
Like the tentacles of an octopus, the tracks of the railroad reached out across California, as if to grasp everything of value in the state Based on an actual, bloody dispute between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880, The Octopus is a stunning novel of the waning days of the frontier West. To the tough-minded and self-reliant farmers, the monopolistic, land-grabbing railroad represented everything they despised: consolidation, organization, conformity. But Norris idealizes no one in this epic depiction of the volatile situation, for the farmers themselves ruthlessly exploited the land, and in their hunger for larger holdings they resorted to the same tactics used by the railroad: subversion, coercion and outright violence. In his introduction, Kevin Starr discusses Norris's debt to Zola for the novel's extraordinary sweep, scale and abundance of characters and details.
Book
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
by Vincent Bugliosi
The true story of the Manson murders.
