Winter of Our Discontent (Steinbeck)

Book Reviews
(Older works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

Mr. Steinbeck displays considerable ingenuity in contriving unexpected twists of plot.... His own pleasure in a sprightly, prancing, frivolous prose style, unlike anything he ever wrote before, is attractive. But this change in literary personality... diminishes the weight of Mr. Steinbeck's attack on moral corruption. Satire, if it is to draw blood, inspire feelings of guide and contrition, cannot afford to seem too light and playful.... Nevertheless...this uneven novel is always pleasantly readable.
Orville Prescott - New York Times (6/23/1961)

Steinbeck...is less ready than he formerly was with the sturdy moral preachment and pat social answer. This is all to the good. Yet...this is a problem whose central problem is never fully solved, an internal conflict novel in which the central issued between nobility and expediency...is never satisfactorily resolved. For this reason, despite its obvious powers, The Winter of Our Discontent cannot rightly stand in the forefront of Steinbeck's fiction. Yet it is also a highly readable novel which bristles with disturbing ideas.
Carlos Baker - New York Times Book Review (6/25/1961)