Review: The Wayward Bus

The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck is a novel that
features Character Character Character more than Location
Location Location mainly because the primary location of
the action is a portable public conveyance-a bus.
Juan, the driver, delusioned by his religious symbol telling
him to flee his marriage agrees to the trip for all the wrong
reasons.
Alice, Juan's drunk wife, who runs the eatery attached to Juan's
garage and who harbors her own jealous fantasies regarding her
 coarsely handsome husband stays behind to get morbidly drunk.
Camille, a blonde beautiful traveler, who is a stripper pretending
to be a dental nurse because she is Everyman's fantasy and is strong
enough to simultaneously play them and resent them.
"Pimples," Juan's homely, bad skinned assistant who wants Camille, but
eventually tries to force himself on Norma ,Alice's runaway waitress,
who is headed to Los Angeles to find Clark Gable, her fantasy man
and/or a happier way of life, but Norma has acquired some sense of
self-esteem through the new mask Camille helped her apply, so she
fights him off.
Then there are the Pritchards, CEO, spoiled wife and angry college-
aged daughter Mildred, who are slumming on this bus on their way
to a Mexican vacation because the dad is curious about the common
people. Of course the Pritchards are entitled and quite put out by the
inconvenience of the bus getting stuck and his corporate wife loses
her cool and lets loose a revealing tirade that embarrasses Mildred
and forces her to take off on a walk. Steinbeck throws in a traveling
salesman/war vet to enrich the stew.
The Wayward Bus is all good fun on the shallowest level kind of like
the Jerry Springer Show, however, Steinbeck digs deeper into the characters
much like Chaucer did in "Canterbury Tales" and The Wayward Bus
ends up provocative/thought-provoking as Juan comes to and returns
to organize a digging out of the mud and righting the bus and continuing
on their journey.
There are so many more facets to John Steinbeck's work than I formerly
was aware of. I am really enjoying this reading adventure. The Wayward
Bus is riveting! I borrowed my copy from the local library.

Raintreepoet, reporting.