"The Devil's Stocking" is Algren's fictionalized account of the trial of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a real-life prize-fighter who had been found guilty of double murder, about whom Algren had written a magazine article for "Esquire" in 1975. In the book, as a period of unrest within the prison begins, the character 'Kenyatta' gives a speech closely mirroring the "Fortean Times" transcript of the 1977 hoax, and those of other American newspaper reports of the broadcast. The passage in Algren's book says: