“I believe there are monsters born in this world to human parents,” a voice intones over the opening of the new East of Eden trailer. “A monster is a variation from the accepted normal. A child may be born perfect, but without kindness or conscience.”

It’s a sentiment drawn directly from John Steinbeck’s novel (the opening of chapter 8, if you want to get out your highlighter), wherein Steinbeck’s omniscient narrator muses on the nature of good and evil. Zoe Kazan’s new limited series adaptation gives these words a different voice: that of memorable antihero Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh). This is East of Eden from the perspective of its most famous monster.

Geoffrey Short/Netflix

“The thing that was really important to me was to stay rooted in the text of the book when it came to exploring who Cathy is,” Kazan tells Tudum. “Basically everything that’s in the series has at least a root in the book.”

And there’s quite a bit that’s in the series, in keeping with the sweeping scope of Steinbeck’s epic story. In the trailer, you can catch glimpses of three generations of the Trask family, from stern patriarch Cyrus (Tracy Letts), to his sons Adam (Christopher Abbott) and Charles (Mike Faist), to Adam’s sons Aron (Joe Anders) and Cal (Joseph Zada). 

Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

The Trasks’ story intersects with Cathy’s, spreading from the aftermath of the Civil War to the first days of World War I. East of Eden is also one of Steinbeck’s most personal works: It crosses the path of Steinbeck’s own family, fictionalized on page and screen as the Hamiltons, led by the wise Samuel (Ciarán Hinds). 

Steinbeck’s intense attachment to the material created a wealth of primary sources regarding his creative process. “There's this incredible resource that I used, which is that Steinbeck wrote longhand in a big journal,” Kazan says. “On the right-hand side of the journal, he would write his pages for the day of the book, and then on the left-hand side, he would write letters to his editor.” 

Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

These letters were later published as Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters. Kazan turned to them throughout production of the series. “You can sort of see where his intentions were,” she says. “He said very early in his writing process, ‘It will actually be two books, the story of my country and the story of me.’ It needs to be epic and intimate.”

At its heart, East of Eden is that epic and intimate American story: the story of what makes humans choose to be monsters — and what makes them choose to be human again. “Our future isn’t determined by our past,” the Trasks’ loyal manservant Lee (Hoon Lee) says in the trailer. “Whatever you do, it will be you who does it.”

East of Eden arrives on Netflix on Oct. 1.