Suggest me a book like 1984 or Grapes of Wrath

[coeus]

If you are looking for dystopian novels, then I would suggest:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Anthem by Ayn Rand
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Stand by Stephen King

If you are looking for dark that is not necessarily dystopian:

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Some on the lists are better than others, but I thought all were worth my time.

[mal4mac]

Good lists coeusus... I really liked:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

But these are mostly like 1984, not Grapes, except for Mice (!)

For Steinbeck, why not try Dickens or Tolstoy or George Eliot... writers of large, realistic, novels set in the "everyday" world, but with great depth, breadth and social conscience. We need more specifics about what you admired about Steinbeck to give tighter recommendations. Was it the social realism in general that you appreciated or the depiction of serious poverty? If both, then maybe Oliver Twist by Dickens comes closest... or Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure...

[PeaceLoveAndTea]

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Trial by Franz Kafka

[Scardanelli]

The closest cousin I can think of to 1984 is Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

That would be my personal choice, too. That and The Trial, by Kafka.

[kelby_lake]

Sounds like you'd love Expressionist Drama. Some expressionist classics would be Woyzeck by George Buchner, The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill, and Machinal by Sophie Treadwell.

[astrum]

I was going to suggest "The Handmaid's Tale."

coeus beat me to it.