Robert Morsberger

Frogs crown Pip ! In his only work of political satire, John Steinbeck turns the French Revolution upside down as amateur astronomer Pippin Héristal is drafted to rule the unruly French. Steinbeck creates around the infamous Pippin the most hilarious royal court ever : Pippin's wife, Queen Marie, who "might have taken her place at the bar of a very good restaurant" ; his uncle, a man of dubious virtue ; his glamour-struck daughter and her beau, the son of the so-called "egg" king of Petaluma, California ; and a motley crew of courtiers and politicians, guards and gardeners.