Author, film director Sayles to appear Jan. 20 in Berkeley for new book

While writing his new historical novel, “Crucible,” film director, screenwriter, actor and author John Sayles unearthed multiple discoveries.

Recognized and acclaimed as a filmmaker whose deep research and knowledge undergirds his award-winning movies such as “The Brother from Another Planet,” “Matewan,” “Eight Men Out,” “Passion Fish,” “Lone Star,” and others, Sayles’ novels and short stories involve similar, intense preparatory investigations. His creative process has produced a vast array of stories that touch on race, class, gender, sexuality, society, culture, global colonization, politics and American corporate industries.

“Crucible” (published by Melville House) tells the sprawling historical narrative of the Ford Motor Co. from the 1920s to the mid-’40s. Covering the period from the Depression to the end of World War II, the character-driven story includes real-life figures — among others, celebrated artist and muralist Diego Rivera, champion heavyweight boxer Joe Louis, and of course, Henry Ford and his family.

Fictional characters rooted in history abound, from Detroit journalists to Brazilians hired to work at Fordlandia, Ford’s massive rubber tree plantation in South America’s Amazon region. Adding nuance and depth, characters also include Prohibition bootleggers, American factory-floor workers, automotive union leaders, Nazis, Klansmen, Black Ford employees, ex-cons, and Jewish and other immigrant communities.

Behind it all churns the voracious, laser-like mind of Sayles, which ran at full throttle during an interview three weeks before the start of a nationwide book tour that includes 7 p.m. appearances this month at Mrs. Dalloway’s bookstore in Berkeley (Jan. 20) and Danville’s Rakestraw Books (Jan. 22).

“I knew the River Rouge factory existed, but I had no idea how incredibly efficiently it was set up,” Sayles says. “He (Henry Ford) had dredged his own little harbor for ore boats to come in and unload. Iron ore could be put into this chain where it went in one end and a Model T Ford would come out the other end in about 28 hours.

“The assembly line was not just putting cars together after the pieces were collected but going from the raw materials — all of which Ford made, except for the rubber he needed for tires, which is what led to the Fordlandia adventure.”

Sayles learned the geography of the Ford plant and about the Detroit area from maps, films and archived materials. From that research also came realizations about the Black workers paid the same wages as White workers but recruited primarily as an insurance policy against unionization.

“I learned Ford thought he was strike-proof among Black workers because nobody else was going to give them the same deal. It was a huge factor in Black people escaping the South and coming north. That Black people could get paid a decent, equal wage was huge.”

Sayles’ previously vague knowledge about Fordlandia while researching and preparing to write about it exponentially expanded his awareness of Brazil’s history, people and culture.

“I had not known there was a ‘Confederado’ colony in the Amazon. People not wanting to live under the Yankee flag after the Civil War went to Brazil and started rubber plantations. Ironically, the younger ones married Brazilian women. These were people who’d fought and died resisting integration.”

Sayles says his writing process for fiction differs from screenwriting in that he limits research on topics and details within a book to one week. When working on a film, the production and art departments provide details.

“I might write about rifles and not know they used smokeless powder, but they will. In a book, I want to know the rifle’s name, is it heavy, what’s the bolt action like, is it an old model?”

In “Crucible,” the muralist Rivera describes science and machinery as “the plastic genius of the brave new world.“ Asked if the internet and AI are 21st century equivalents, Sayles suggests the internet is dangerous because it can pull him into a time-sucking tunnel and kill a story’s momentum. AI, he says holds the same promise and peril as did the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“You don’t know how it will play out. Obviously, it will mean fewer jobs in animation because it’s a shortcut like computer animation that replaced people. Disney used to hire people who only did water — raindrops, rivers, streams. Will AI be good overall or a double-edged sword?”

Characters in the book that most surprised and intrigued him include children of the main players: the two sons of Zeke Crowder, a Black foundry worker, and Sonia, a Ford employee’s daughter who has cerebral palsy.

“She has a burning desire to write and intersect with the world. I was happy when I came on the idea her father would recognize that and buy her a typewriter. Even if she typed with one finger, one letter at a time, it was a way for her to be heard as a person.”

Ford is famous for saying that history focused only on dates and locations of wars is “double-bunk,” Sayles asserts.

He says that instead, history is human potential found in individual stories that tell of scientific invention and discovery; economic and political rise-and-fall cycles; and ideas related to assimilation, jingoism and grassroots resistance to abusive forces of power and the silencing of underrepresented voices.

“It’s not war, but it’s a struggle when your neighborhood and culture are yanked out (in the name of urban renewal). And today’s not the first time America kicked out or is keeping certain ethnicities from entering. It’s a cycle. What’s different about now is the way they’re deporting people. They used to not wear masks when they did it.”

Projecting into the future, Sayles says the independent film industry faces a bottleneck in distribution. There are fewer theaters, playdates and in-person audiences for off-Hollywood movies. Film equipment is cheaper, people no longer have to go to film school and can learn a lot about filmmaking online, but raising money is still hard.

“I haven’t gotten other people’s money to make a movie for 20 years,” he says.

Sayles argues that the broad scale of “Crucible” would make a better mini-series than a film adaptation and that his novels and films to come will continue reflecting his childhood curiosity about history. He recalls a third-grade history book with text and images describing African American runaway slaves during the American Revolutionary War who joined the British military.

“I (became) aware that ‘history’ was a story that changed depending on who was telling it. It’s certainly one of the reasons I write about events as seen by many different perspectives.”

For details on Sayles’ new book and upcoming Bay Area appearances, go online to bit.ly/3Ys1aYQ or bit.ly/49nwwF0.

Lou Fancher is a freelance writer. Reach her at lou@johnsonandfancher.com.