I've enjoyed The Grapes of Wrath each of the four or five times I've read. it. There is a Finnish writer, Kalle Päätalo, whose 5-volume series, Koillismaa is a good story, one that reminds me of Steinbeck.
- Our Daily Bread (Koillismaa, 1960)
- Before the Storm (Selkosen kansaa, 1962)
- Storm over the Land (Myrsky Koillismaassa, 1963)
- After the Storm (Myrskyn jälkeen, 1965)
- The Winter of the Black Snow (Mustan lumen talvi, 1969)
The series covers a time period of...sometime around the turn of the last century...as I recall...up to the 60s in Finland...a rural area. Too, if you're interested, Rope of Gold by Josephine Herbst or Vein of Iron by Ellen Glasgow are two stories with some of the same kind of themes/story as Steinbeck's and Päätalo's. There's others, I'm sure. Information.
Reading Päätalo was enlightening...as there is one scene where "Tampere Boy" as he is called travels from one town to another and the people at the new location continue to refer to him as "Tampere Boy"...long after he has established himself there. This was echoed in my neck-of-the-woods as when younger, the old-timers would often ask "whose boy are you?" People are defined by place as much as relations...in fact, Finnish names...Christian names if you will, often refer to a place...Maki for hill...one that comes to mind...there are others for various locations. While Tampere Boy encountered some of the same kind of...whuducallit as the Joads in California...mistrust perhaps...that eventually fell away and was replaced by trust. But then, too, there's one of Vonnegut's stories where family matters...remember that story where they're all flowers? Daffodil 6? I best stop now...