They might not have read Joyce but I can guarantee they were reading Steinbeck, Hemingway, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, Vonnegut, Lee, Salinger, Frost.

All the novels and poetry in the American canon, the stuff high school students groan about having to read today, were once bestsellers in their day. You don’t get to be a bestseller back then by selling only to millionaires.