John Steinbeck · 1937 · road

John Steinbeck's 1937 novel. Two migrant ranch hands, run out of one town and walking into the next, carry between them a dream of a few acres of their own. George does the thinking; Lennie is enormous, gentle, and does not know his own strength. Three days in the Salinas Valley, beginning and ending at the same pool on the river.

1. 1
   Weed

   The job before this one ended when Lennie took hold of a girl's dress and would not let go, and the two of them spent a day in an irrigation ditch while the town hunted them. The novel opens with them already running.

2. 2
   The Salinas River

   A few miles south of Soledad, where the river runs deep and green under the sycamores. They camp here the night before starting work, and George makes Lennie promise that if there is trouble he is to come back and hide.

3. 3
   The Ranch

   A quarter mile down the road: bunkhouse, barn, and the boss's son Curley, who picks fights with big men, and a wife with nobody to talk to. Candy's dog is shot, and for a few days the dream of a few acres looks possible.

4. 4
   The Salinas River

   Lennie comes back to the pool as he was told, and George reaches him before the others do. He talks him through the farm and the rabbits one last time, and shoots him in the back of the head while he is looking at it.