Steinbeck and Hemingway were not elitist or bourgeois. The wrote in plain language of the people's plight! Steinbeck one of my all time favorites. I even made a pilgrimage to Monterrey and went to the real "*****'s" store and saw the spot where Doc died when he passed out drunk in his car on the train tracks and got hit by a train.
Doc was a real guy, btw and a pretty famous marine biologist. His real name was Ed Ricketts, and he wrote Between Pacific Tides - the book Steinbeck refers to in Canery Row. Its a seminal work on the pacific intertidal. He was my hero all growing up.