Boston: A Documentary Novel of the Sacco-Vanzetti Case

The protracted trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was the most controversial political event of the 1920s. Today, more than seventy years after their execution, the events surrounding the case of Sacco and Vanzetti are still the source of debate. Truly, it is the "case that would not die." Surprisingly, of all the books that have appeared over the years concerning the case, the most complete and convincing was first published in 1928, only a year after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. That book is Upton Sinclair's Boston. In his "documentary novel" the celebrated author of The Jungle combined a firm grasp of the facts of the case with an engrossing fictional framework to produce a remarkably accurate and comprehensive report of the events that spanned the years 1919 to 1927 which ultimately focused the attention of the whole world on a drama played out in the drawing rooms, courts, and streets of the city of Boston. In Boston, Sinclair described the xenophobia and paranoia that led the upper crust of Boston society to see these two illiterate immigrants as a threat to their way of life, and led to their conviction on the flimsiest of evidence. Sinclair used his considerable skills to arouse the reader to a state of outrage as the protagonists' inevitable fate approaches.