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An exceptional book, superior to The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck starts the book with his sweeping description of location, not unlike Grapes of Wrath. He then creates an ambitious array of characters scattered about, then slowly weaves their lives and plot lines together with deftness. By the middle of the book, I felt like maybe he was nearly finished...? But no, he still had a ways to go. Unlike Grapes of Wrath, this book does not run out of steam and sort of skid to an underwhelming end, but chugs on at full steam. Those more used to 21st century fiction, where the fad is overwhelmingly to jump back and forth in time, may find the book's straightforward march through time conventional. Still, Steinbeck covers an impressive chronology just as he juggles his many characters.
Moral questions are addressed from different angles throughout, there not being just one "moral" at the end, but competing outlooks and approaches often personified by the characters themselves. And Steinbeck had the courage to put himself into the story, both as narrator but also as a minor unseen character, giving the novel a bit of a biographic air. Given the era in which he wrote, he was avant garde in his handling of race, sex, prejudice, and other social issues. He certainly portrayed "the way it was" but had his own little sly commentary about it as well.
If you only ever read one Steinbeck work, make it this one. It truly holds up from start to finish, provides a lot of meat, but remains at the level of enjoyable fiction. An excellent read!