Sinclairity

MOUNTAIN CITY--Upton Sinclair--A. & C. Boni ($2.50).

Socialist Upton Sinclair might be a better novelist if he kept anti-capitalist propaganda out of his books; but probably in that case he would not write at all. Of all U. S. authors, Author Sinclair is doubtless the foremost believer in Art for Man's Sake. Preacher first, novelist second (a bad second), he has founded many a tragic, many a sordid tale on fact, embellished it with idealistic Utopian fantasy, false to human nature. Mountain City, latest of his many novels, is more a sordid than a tragic story, its propaganda negative, implied rather than explicit.

Author Sinclair tells of the rise to Success of one Jed Rusher, a Western farmer's boy who dreamed of power, worked for nothing else, insinuated himself into a rich man's family, made $50,000,000 before he was 30. Lulu Belle Macy, the rich man's daughter, wanted to know how babies were made, wanted to have one herself to play with. Jed would not tell her how it was done, neither would her mother, so she enquired elsewhere. When she was pregnant Jed married her. It gave him the step up he needed; all went well. Business engrossed him, he made his pile; when his wife's seducer won her again he let her go, contemplated a more businesslike partner next time.

Author Upton Sinclair, 51, was born in Baltimore, educated at Manhattan's College of the City of New York, Columbia University. He has been married, divorced, remarried; has one son. He has founded: the late great Helicon Home Colony, Englewood, N. J. (Utopian colony) ; Intercollegiate Socialist Society (now League for Industrial Democracy); American Civil Liberties Union of California. He has been Socialist candidate: for Congress (N. J.); for Congress, Senate, Governor (Calif.). Fond of suing for libel, he does not always win. Author Sinclair Lewis, when a Yale undergraduate, admired Author Sinclair, left college to take care of Author Sinclair's furnace at Helicon Hall, dropped the Harry from his full name (Harry Sinclair Lewis), later quarreled with Author Sinclair. Author Sinclair's books have been translated into many foreign languages; he is regarded in Germany and Russia as one of the foremost U. S. writers. Slight of frame, professorial, bespectacled, Author Sinclair lives in Pasadena, whence issue tirelessly books, propaganda, publicity, both Socialist and person. He has the smile of a fanatic. Other books: The Jungle, King Coal, Oil!, The Brass Check, The Goose-Step, Boston, Singing Jailbirds (a play), etc.

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