Tortilla Flat

Tortilla Flat (1935) is an early John Steinbeck novel set in Monterey, California. The novel was the author's first clear critical and commercial success.
The book portrays with great sympathy and humour a group of paisanos - literally, countrymen - a small band of errant friends enjoying life and wine in the days after the end of the Great War.
Tortilla Flat was made into a film in 1942. Steinbeck would later return to some of the panhandling locals of Monterey (though not the Spanish paisanos of the Flat) in his novel Cannery Row (1945).