I came across your article from a DuckDuckGo search after seeing a video about this. I would love to see a deeper dive on this topic and I’ll have to read Babs book now. People only mention Grapes of Wrath in the comparison but there are the letters and essays in America and Americans were Steinbeck tells the non-fiction stories of his time in the dust bowl. I’m curious as to why those works haven’t come up.