Recommended Reading

Below are some novels and plays written during the Great Depression. Some of these titles deal with the times and its effect on people's lives. Others were simply popular and successful works from the time.

Cain, James M. (James Mallahan) (1892-1977) Fiction
The Postman Always Rings Twice
A drifter helps a bored housewife murder her husband. The best of the hard-boiled fiction from the era. (Vintage Books, c 1934)

Caldwell, Erskine (1903-1987) Fiction
Tobacco Road
This was the most successful of Caldwell's novels about poor white southern tenet farmers. Filled with sex & violence, the novel was also a popular Broadway play. (Beehive Press, c1932)

Chandler, Raymond, (1888-1959) Fiction
The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely
These are two of the best crime mysteries by the godfather of the genre. They tell the story of a gritty L.A. private detective who is investigating murders. (Modern Library, c1939-1940)

Connelly, Marc (1890-1980) 812C75G
Green Pastures
This fantasy folk biblical drama won a Pulitzer Prize. It's about African-Americans living in a heaven ruled by "DeLawd." (Delisle, c1930)

Faulkner, William (1897-1962) Fiction
Sanctuary: the original text
This novel of rape and murder in Mississippi was so severely denounced by the critics of its day that the original text wasn't published until after the author was dead for 20 years. (Random House, c1931)

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), (1896-1940) 818 F553 C
The Crack-Up
Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald were the golden children of the roaring 20's. By the 1930's, however, Zelda was in a mental institution and Scott was an alcoholic failure. Still this chronicler of the jazz age was able to give his autobiographical essay the same pathos found in his great fiction. ( J. Laughlin, 1936)

Hellman, Lillian, (1906-1984) 812 HELLMAN
The Children's Hour
A huge success in its day, this play isn't about lesbianism as much as it's about a lie. This was Hellman's first drama. (Dramatists Play Service, 1934)

Hurston, Zora Neale (1981-1960) Fiction
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Young African-America woman struggles to find her place in the world. This is Hurston's masterpiece and an influential work from the Harlem Renaissance. (HarperCollins, 1937)

Mitchell, Margaret (1900-1949) Fiction
Gone with the Wind
A Southern belle loves one man but marries another in this historical novel set during the American Civil War. This Pulitzer Prize-winner was the great success of the era. (Macmillan, 1936)

Odets, Clifford (1906-1963) 812 Odets
Waiting for Lefty & Other Plays
Based on the 1934 New York City taxi drivers strike, this drama was the great triumph of the Group Theater. (Grove Press, c1935)

Steinbeck, John (1902-1968) Fiction
The Grapes of Wrath
A family leaves their Dust Bowl-ravaged Oklahoma farm for the lusH California fields. This novel was a critical success and a major Hollywood motion picture. (The Viking Press, c1939)

West, Nathanael 1903-1940 Fiction
Miss Lonelyhearts, & the Day of the Locust
West, who died in a tragic automobile accident with his young wife, Eileen, in 1940, left us these two novels. One is the story of a young man who writes a newspaper's lonely hearts column and the other the story of a young set designer in Hollywood. Both deal with crushed dreams in a world gone crazy. (J. Laughlin, c1933-1939)

Wright, Richard 1908-1960 Fiction
Native Son
The story of a Black teenager who accidentally commits murder in Chicago. The author received support from the WPA for this work. (Harper & Row, 1940)

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Related Links

Index of American Design
http://www.nga.gov/collection/iad/index.htm

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/

New Deal Network
http://newdeal.feri.org/index.htm