Galleycat's Jason Boog has a piece on Sanora Babb's Whose Names Are Unknown—the novel that went unpublished in 1939 because it was deemed too similar to John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath; was finally published in 2004; and which has been revived by Ken Burns' Dust Bowl documentary.
Let's take a moment to ponder that for a second: A publisher… declined a book… because it was deemed too similar… to a wildly successful book. I know disposable income was more scarce in 1939, but oh, how times have changed.
—Brian Howard
