E. L. Doctorow

Introduction

E. L. Doctorow

No one could tell E. L. Doctorow to keep his mouth shut. The author grew up in a lively Jewish household where vigorous discussion was encouraged. He has said of his childhood that it was “a lower middle-class environment of generally enlightened socialist sensibility.” These early experiences helped shape Doctorow’s novels, which are a blend of social criticism and history. Well-educated, holding degrees from both Kenyon College and Columbia University, Doctorow did not focus on writing until some time after college. His job as a script reader at Columbia Pictures gave him a unique perspective on how to write structure that he later perfected in his own novels, particularly in his most famous book, Ragtime.

Essential Facts

1. Doctorow once worked at the reservations desk at LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
2. Doctorow’s novel Big as Life (1966) is a science fiction story that was trounced by critics. Doctorow eventually removed the novel from print.
3. Doctorow studied playwright Heinrich Von Kleist’s work while at Columbia and based his protagonist in Ragtime after a hero in one of Kleist’s books.
4. In its first year in print, Ragtime sold 200,000 hardcover copies and made a total of $2 million in paperback sales.
5. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel, his first commercial success, was based on the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. His outrage at their execution fueled his writing of the novel.