East of Eden by John Steinbeck

So now, Maggie and I are reading the same book - it's one of my favorites (so yes, I've read it before): East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

This is a novel about Adam Trask and his twin boys Aron and Caleb (Cal). Adam is a man without a dream - forced into the army by his father and then left to wandering the country trying to find his niche. He stumbles upon a woman, Cathy (the epitome of all that is evil and wrong - a lame description of her but you'd have to read the novel to understand her), who he ends up marrying and who ends up giving birth to "his" twin boys. She then shoots Adam, leaves him and becomes a madam (a whore and a horrible woman) in a brothel. The novel delves into the Cain/Abel relationship and good versus evil question that Steinbeck seems to think lies in everyone of us.

It is certainly an "epic" novel and I hope that you like it Maggie. Steinbeck tends to give a lot of detail in his novels but at least in this one (as opposed to Grapes of Wrath) he has plenty of dialogue to break up the wordy descriptions.

I'm almost done with this book and don't really have anything new to read so I guess I'll be going to Half Price soon to stock up on my summer reads. Yipee!!!