The novel The Wayward Bus travels through the roads of California's lush countryside, carrying the lost and lonely to new destinations. Juan Chicoy is at the wheel, a man of the land, with a passionate and unkempt character. His passengers include Ernest, a traveling salesman looking for fun, seventeen-year-old Kit, also known as "Pimples," and Camille, the stripper who performs at men's nights and mentors young Norma. This powerful and keen novel unfolds into a story of crisis and passion, love and desire, as the travelers reveal their secrets and depart from their past, searching, perhaps, for the promise of a better future. The Wayward Bus, with its deep understanding of human desires and failures, remains one of Steinbeck's most powerful novels.