Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Sayles is bringing his sweeping new historical novel “Crucible” to Pasadena this month. The book is “an epic tale ranging from the 1920s through the second World War, featuring violent labor disputes, misbegotten jungle expeditions, a tragic race riot, and the gestapo tactics of Ford’s private army.”
The novel reimagines Henry Ford as the “Elon Musk of his day” while exploring how Detroit becomes “a crucible for American class conflict during the Great Depression, with an army of laid off Ford workers drifting into the ranks of the burgeoning union movement — Henry Ford’s worst nightmare.” Ford recruits “black laborers migrating from the deep South to serve as ‘strike insurance'” and empowers “Harry Bennett, pugnacious as he is diminutive, free reign over the legion of barroom brawlers and ex-cons” in his company’s Security Department. Meanwhile, Ford purchases “a sizable chunk of Brazil’s Amazonian rainforest, vowing to grow his own rubber for tires, but stubbornly refusing to include a botanist,” leading to “a series of biological plagues” at the Fordlandia plantation.
Kirkus Reviews called the book “a well-researched if manic trek through the perils of industrialization.”
Sayles has been nominated twice for Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay — for “Passion Fish” (1992) and “Lone Star” (1996). His 1977 novel “Union Dues” was a National Book Award nominee.
“Crucible” will run on Monday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA. For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-01-26/john-sayles.
