Matthew McElroy ’s Reviews > The Winter of Our Discontent > Status Update

I had been wondering when the "discontent" was going to kick in. And just when I thought it wasn't ever going to arrive, here comes the money problems.
Historical context: a fictional town in Long Island after World War 1, maybe 2, but before it becomes the sprawling suburbs we know.

Definitely not the Steinbeck we are familiar with. This isn't a tale of hardship and woe, like The Pearl, Grapes of Wrath or Mice and Men.
And it isn't a novella like Tortilla Flats, or The Red Pony. I think it is the first book of his that is written with a first person narrator. Other than the autobiographical Travels with Charley.

Before the book starts, Steinbeck writes, "Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places here described would do better to inspect their own communities and search their own hearts for this book is about a large part of America today."
The main character lost his small business to the bank, blames an immigrant and had an under-handed businessman offer him a deal that sounds too good to be true.