April 21, 2006

The Legacy of Upton Sinclair

To the Editor:

I appreciated Kevin Mattson's essay about Upton Sinclair's apparent knowledge that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty, especially because it drew attention to Boston, Sinclair's largely forgotten novel about the case ("The Smoking Gun That Wasn't," The Chronicle Review, March 3). Responding to the new allegations that Sinclair lied about Sacco and Vanzetti in order to sell his book, Mattson notes that perjured testimony is an important theme in Boston and