Obscene in the extreme

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. A month after it was published in April 1939, it stood as the nation's No. 1 best seller. And by summer in Kern County, California -- the Joads' newfound home -- the book was burned publicly and banned from local schools and library shelves. Obscene in the Extreme tells the remarkable story behind this fit of censorship. It all begins as Kern County librarian Gretchen Knief returns home from vacation to discover the Board of Supervisors voting to suppress Steinbeck's novel. When agribusiness titan W.B. "Bill" Camp presides over the book's torching in downtown Bakersfield a few days later, he declares, "We are angry, not because we were attacked, but because we were attacked by a book obscene in the extreme sense of the word." Yet Knief bravely fights back: "If that book is banned today, what book will be banned tomorrow?" Obscene in the Extreme is fast-paced and sharply focused, with a narrative that unfolds over the course of a single week. But its backdrop is monumental. The backlash to the publication of The Grapes of Wrath -- a book praised by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and seared into the public's consciousness by the lyrics of Woody Guthrie and the on-screen performance of Henry Fonda -- serves as a window into an extraordinary time of upheaval in America. - Jacket flap.