Boston (novel)

Boston is a novel by Upton Sinclair. It is a "documentary novel" that combines the facts of the case with journalistic depictions of actual participants and fictional characters and events. Sinclair mixed his fictional characters into the prosecution and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Research and writing

Sinclair worked from a passionate conviction that the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti constituted "the most shocking crime that has been committed in American history since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln" and a belief that "It will empoison our public life for a generation."

He interviewed Bartolomeo Vanzetti twice and conducted research following the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927. For his central character he used as his model a California acquaintance who recounted stories of her earlier life amid Boston's aristocracy. As part of his research he attended the funeral of a Boston industrialist. He recognized that some of his readers might find that disrespectful and offered this defense: "if you are a novelist you think about 'copy' and not about anybody's feelings, even your own." To verify dialogue, he even contacted a journalist to verify his fidelity in transcribing a jailhouse conversation. As a result, he avoided repeating the oft-quoted description of Sacco and Vanzetti, falsely attributed to Vanzetti, as "a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler." In hundreds of letters he sought to acquire and verify details, such as the timing and physical setting of prison visits. He asked other correspondents to review parts of the manuscript for errors.

Another bit of his research has attracted periodic interest and political criticism.