Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Octopus: A California Story

The Octopus: A California Story

Norris, Frank

Paperback

Historical Fiction

ISBN10: 1494885328
ISBN13: 9781494885328
Publisher: Createspace
Published: Jan 7 2014
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.37
Height: 0.65 Width: 8.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Based on an actual, bloody dispute between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880, The Octopus is Frank Norris' story of the waning days of the frontier West. Based on an actual incident, The Octopus is set in the San Joaquin Valley of central California towards the end of the 19th century -- not long before it was written. It concerns a dispute between the Pacific & Southwestern Railroad (in historical reality, the Southern Pacific) which owns the land it runs through and the tenant wheat ranchers who farm it. This is a turn-of-the-century epic of California wheat farmers struggling against the rapacity of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, which will stop at nothing to extend its domination. The company controls the local paper, the land, the legislature and, when the farmers organize to protect themselves, even manages to control their representative on the state rate-fixing commission. An exemplary work of its time, The Octopus uses the perpetual production of wheat as a metaphor for the continuous cycle of the good of the earth prevailing over the evil of men, while examining the integrity and resolve of men faced with financial ruin. An unremitting tale of greed and betrayal, it was originally intended as one-third of Norris' never-completed Epic of the Wheat trilogy.

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