Steinbeck, John: 1902-1968

Cannery Row, 1945 - Thematic Parallels: Misfit

Misfit denotes a person who doesn’t fit in with a group or society’s expectations.
Steinbeck, John: Cannery Row, 1945
The story focuses on the community life among the misfits and working-class people.
The following books are thematically simliar. They lend themselves well to being read in groups, compared with one another, or used to teach a similar topic over an extended period with a class:
- Boyle, T. C.: The Tortilla Curtain, 1995, ~350pp
  This novel explores marginalized individuals and social outcasts in California.
  - Both novels challenge readers to empathize with people living on the margins and criticize society’s failure to care for them. Both authors use nature symbolically to reflect human behavior and social themes and emphasize human complexity instead of moral absolutes. Steinbeck romanticizes his characters more gently, while Boyle portrays harsher realities, but both insist on the worth of the overlooked.
- Hornby, Nick: About a Boy, 1998, ~280pp
  This novel centers on socially awkward or isolated characters who find connection, akin to the “misfit” theme.
  - Both authors celebrate unconventional lives and challenge the idea of what it means to be respectable. The ordinary is meaningful, and ordinary people are worthy protagonists.
- McCullers, Carson: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 1951, ~90pp
  This is a novella focusing on eccentric characters and complex social relations in a small town.
  - Both authors focus on people pushed to the edges of society and explore what binds (or fails to bind) them into a community. Love is not idealized; instead it is shown as messy, asymmetrical, unpredictable, and often unfulfilling. Despite tonal differences—Steinbeck warm and humane, McCullers darker and more Gothic—the two works share a deep interest in the fragile, strange, and often beautiful ways people try to care for one another.
- Sillitoe, Alan: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, 1959, ~170pp
  This short story is about an outsider and his personal rebellion, fitting the theme of societal misfits.
  - Both texts focus on people who are economically and socially marginalized, emphasizing how class conditions shape identity, choices, and moral codes. They reveal sympathy for individuals who resist authority structures that claim to “civilize” them. Each portrays rebellion—subtle or overt—as a response to hypocrisy and oppression.
List of general discussion questions on Misfit (pdf)
List of essay prompts on Misfit (pdf)