Wide Is the Gate

Upton Sinclair

Jan 2016 · The Lanny Budd Novels Book 4 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Upton Sinclair’s Pulitzer Prize–winning saga continues as Lanny Budd faces the horrors of Nazi Germany and steps into the fire of the Spanish Civil War

Lanny Budd’s dedication to social justice and political action has placed a serious strain on his marriage to his heiress wife, Irma, but as he moves through the 1930s, the international art dealer is unable to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Europe. As the Nazi Party solidifies its power in Germany, Lanny recognizes a golden opportunity to make a difference when his arms dealer father strikes a business agreement with Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command.
 
Robbie Budd’s alliance with the Luftwaffe commander and Lanny’s art world reputation enable the younger Budd to move easily among the Nazi high command and gather valuable information he can transmit back to those who are dedicated to the destruction of Nazism and Fascism. It is a dangerous—albeit necessary—game that Lanny is playing, and it will carry him from Germany to Spain on a life-and-death mission on the eve of the Spanish Civil War.
 
The fourth installment of an eleven-book series, Wide Is the Gate continues Upton Sinclair’s literary journey through the tumult of the twentieth century. An astonishing mix of history, adventure, and romance, the Lanny Budd Novels are a testament to the breathtaking scope of the author’s vision and his singular talents as a storyteller.

About the author

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, activist, and politician whose novel The Jungle (1906) led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Born into an impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair entered City College of New York five days before his fourteenth birthday. He wrote dime novels and articles for pulp magazines to pay for his tuition, and continued his writing career as a graduate student at Columbia University. To research The Jungle, he spent seven weeks working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants. The book received great critical and commercial success, and Sinclair used the proceeds to start a utopian community in New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he founded the state’s ACLU chapter and became an influential political figure, running for governor as the Democratic nominee in 1934. Sinclair wrote close to one hundred books during his lifetime, including Oil! (1927), the inspiration for the 2007 movie There Will Be Blood; Boston (1928), a documentary novel revolving around the Sacco and Vanzetti case; The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism; and the eleven novels in the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lanny Budd series.