American writer Upton Sinclair rose to literary acclaim for his fearlessness in broaching sensitive and incendiary topics, and this collaboration with French playwright Eugene Brieux is no exception. A novelized rendition of Brieux’s scandal-stirring play "Les Avaries, " Damaged Goods tells the story of one man’s experience of contracting and living with syphilis in an era when such a diagnosis was often deadly and almost always marked one as a social pariah.