Me: Having your "roots in fact" is not the same as reliable or accurate fact
JC: Nobody has suggested it is...

Au contrair. This thread is doing it in both type I&II fashion:

Joe incorrectly accepts fiction (Steinbeck) as nonfiction.

Sandman incorrectly rejects fiction (Shakespeare) as nonfiction.

Fiction can't be accepted or rejected to the standard of nonfiction. Wrong metrics.

Fwiw: When I got paid to write it was technical - food, drug, and nuclear grade nonfiction. Manufacturer's instruction manuals at the bottom and the Code of Federal Regs. at the top of a pyramid of knowledge and every stone audited to a schedule. Continuous improvement was the norm. “Creosote dumps” harumpf -

“The phrase (grapes of wrath) also appears at the end of chapter 25 in Steinbeck's book, which describes the purposeful destruction of food to keep the price high:

    [A]nd in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” ['Grapes' wiki]

Now I just wonder where they got that linkage from?