the best-known bus novel

the dust jacket of the original edition

artwork for a French edition; the title translates as "The castaways from the bus"

the cover of a German edition; "Bus on side paths"

The Wayward Bus novel by John Steinbeck, published in 1947, is set at a place called Rebel Corners, a crossroads 42 miles south of San Ysidro, California [actually San Ysidro is the border with Mexico]. Character Juan Chicoy (half-Mexican, half-Irish) maintains a small bus, nicknamed "Sweetheart". He earns his living as a mechanic, and by ferrying passengers between Rebel Corners and San Juan de la Cruz. The larger Greyhound Bus Company serves both of those locations on separate routes, but does not have service connecting the two.

It was made into a movie 10 years later in 1957.