Burning Bright

Burning Bright is a novella by John Steinbeck, published in 1950 and written as an experiment in producing a play in the form of a novel.

Where a play would carry only dialogue and brief stage directions, Steinbeck filled out the scenes with details of both the characters and the environment. His intention was to let the play be read by people who would not normally read drama while still allowing the dialogue to be lifted and performed with very little adaptation. The result is a book that reads as a play without being one.

The story is a simple morality play set in a circus. Joe Saul is desperate for a child; his young wife, Mordeen, suspects that he is sterile, and in order to give him what he wants she decides to seduce his young assistant.

When Joe Saul discovers what has happened, he has to come to terms with his own pride, and the book is concerned with what the arrangement costs all three of the people involved in it.