By anyone’s account, John Sayles has had a successful career. Whether he’s writing and directing films (Matewan, Eight Men Out, The Brother from Another Planet), rewriting schlock horror movies (Piranha), or publishing historical novels set in distant lands and comfortable shores, he always finds an audience. Sayles has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and once for the National Book Award, so he has the aura of American literati shining around his head.

Following the publication of 2025’s TO SAVE A MAN, Sayles is back with CRUCIBLE, a story that centers on Henry Ford, the legendary industrialist who made automobiles a must-have item in a growing America. However, it’s also a heavy look at the issues raised from his policies and manufacturing processes, dipping into the beginnings of the climate crisis that currently is destroying hectares of natural wonder all across the globe.

"CRUCIBLE is a beautifully written, engaging, funny and, yes, moral tale without forgetting that it wants so badly to entertain and teach in equal measure."

DEADLINE: DETROIT --- the central gateway for illegal Canadian liquor during the Great Depression, and perhaps the core of the new class conflict, workers hoping to join in a union to ensure good business practices and pay as Ford’s empire grows. Pretty rich stuff, right? But then it turns into a climate crisis story as well. Ford has hundreds of thousands of employees, so he begins to recruit Black laborers migrating from the South to serve as strike insurance and finds a Security Department head, the small but feisty Harry Bennett, to be his henchman over a group of violent ex-cons and fighting drunks who make up his crew.

As the racial melting pot in Detroit begins to boil over, Ford decides to head down to the Amazon, where he has bought a sizable chunk of the rainforest in order to control a steady supply of rubber to make his own tires. However, he won’t pay a botanist to work with the men clearing the land down there, and they encounter (and create) issues that require a steadier hand than Ford’s greedy one. The story that evolves from these dual disasters includes boxer Joe Louis, artist Diego Rivera, rubber tappers, radicals, newsmen, gangsters, and the account of the rise of America’s first great industrialist and greedy corporate miser.

Sayles’ work is often pointed, political and historical. He doesn’t mince words when it comes to what he thinks about these situations, but there is no overarching moral designation made by him. His characters are so vibrant that they tell the story very well themselves, and readers never feel like they are being lectured to about the obvious themes and issues that are represented here. Instead, the adventure of a Sayles book is the immersive quality and the gorgeous sense of context that he requires of his plots. It’s a behind-the-scenes look, a photoplay of ridiculous inattention and horrific authoritarianism, but it’s put inside a snow globe of America and its neighbors during a very difficult time.

CRUCIBLE is a beautifully written, engaging, funny and, yes, moral tale without forgetting that it wants so badly to entertain and teach in equal measure. Henry Ford and his world have never been built into a better story. The cinematic resonance of Sayles’ work also helps readers sink into the environment and find a foundation there that is relatable, teachable and exciting. This is an especially important book for this time, and it may remind the world that it is sinful to replay history that need not be repeated.