The final scene in The Grapes of Wrath is unforgettable: Rose of Sharon nursing a starving old man after the birth of her stillborn baby. And in the face of headlines daily declaring the worst economic collapse since the Depression, Steinbeck is worth remembering. It’s unexpected, though, to encounter echoes of his work in tales set as far from California as rural Pakistan. But Daniyal Mueenuddin, a half-American, half-Pakistani writer, has crafted a chronicle of poverty as detailed and revealing as any by Steinbeck, with the same drive to humanize his subjects. Mueenuddin’s collection of linked stories does for the servants of Pakistan what Steinbeck’s fiction did for the laborers of America, capturing the complicated lives of individuals whose suffering stems from their class situation. In the case of In Other
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