E. L. Doctorow
E. L. Doctorow, born Edgar Lawrence Doctorow on January 6, 1931, was a prominent American author known for his innovative use of historical fiction. Growing up in the Bronx to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Doctorow was drawn to literature from an early age, later studying philosophy at Kenyon College. His career as a writer began after a stint in the U.S. Army, and he transitioned from a successful editorial role to full-time writing in 1969. Doctorow's notable works include *Ragtime*, *The Book of Daniel*, and *World's Fair*, each acclaimed for blending fact with fiction and addressing complex social and political themes. His novels often incorporate unique narrative structures, reflecting his interest in how personal and historical narratives intersect. Doctorow’s literary contributions earned him numerous accolades, including the National Book Award, and he remains a significant figure in American literature, particularly in the realm of historical fiction. He passed away on July 21, 2015, leaving behind a rich legacy of thought-provoking literature that continues to resonate with readers today.
E. L. Doctorow
Author
- Born: January 6, 1931
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: July 21, 2015
- Place of death: New York, New York
Doctorow is known for the interplay between fiction and reality in his works, which reveal deeper truths about American history, society, and culture.
Early Life
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931, to Russian Jewish parents Rose and David, who were children of immigrants. He grew up in the Bronx, and, like the character Everett in his novel City of God (2000), Doctorow attended the Bronx High School of Science. Unlike most of the mathematically gifted children in the school, Doctorow was drawn to the literary magazine Dynamo, where he published an essay based on his reading of Franz Kafka.
In 1952, Doctorow graduated with honors from Kenyon College in Ohio where he studied philosophy and worked with the poet John Crowe Ransom, a proponent of New Criticism. During this time, Doctorow also developed his love of deconstructing narratives and reimagining them, an impulse that some have argued is like the tradition of ancient rabbis and sages who creatively reimagined the stories of the Hebrew Bible through Midrash, the interpretation of biblical narratives. While Doctorow was not religious, this decidedly Jewish literary technique places him in the tradition of Jewish writing.
After graduating from Kenyon, Doctorow began graduate studies in English drama at Columbia University, but he was drafted into the United States Army after only a year of course work. He was stationed in Germany and served as a corporal in the Signal Corps until 1955. During this time, he married Helen Setzer, a fellow student at Columbia University, and they had three children—Jenny, Caroline, and Richard—all born before 1960.
Doctorow returned to New York after his military service and worked as a senior editor at New American Library from 1959 to 1964, where he assisted authors such as Ayn Rand and Ian Fleming. In 1964, he accepted a position as editor in chief at Dial Press, where he played a role in publishing Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, William Kennedy, and others. In 1969, Doctorow concluded his editorial work and began writing and teaching on a full-time basis. He held teaching positions at the University of California, Irvine; Yale University Drama School; Princeton University; Sarah Lawrence College; and New York University, where he achieved the Glucksman Chair in American Letters.
Life’s Work
Between 1960 and 1968, before he left his editorial work to become a full-time writer and professor, Doctorow published three works: Welcome to Hard Times (1960), a tale about the Old West, which was later adapted into a film starring Henry Fonda; Big as Life (1966); and “The Songs of Billy Bathgate,” a short story from which he recycled the protagonist’s name for his later novel, Billy Bathgate (1989), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award.
After Doctorow parted ways with Dial Press in 1969, he took a position as visiting writer at the University of California, Irvine, where he was able to complete his celebrated novel The Book of Daniel (1971), a fictionalized reconsideration of the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 after being convicted of espionage. The novel garnered a lot of attention, propelling Doctorow into the next level of American writers. It was nominated for a National Book Award, as was his 1980 novel Loon Lake. Four years after the publication of The Book of Daniel, which later was adapted for a film directed by Sidney Lumet, Doctorow published a novel that became known as one of his masterpieces: Ragtime (1975). It earned numerous awards and was adapted for a film that was nominated for eight Academy Awards. It was made into a Broadway musical in 1998, and that musical was nominated for numerous Tony Awards. Ragtime, one of the best-selling American books of all time, is especially indicative of Doctorow’s tendency to use fiction to reveal the sinister political and cultural undercurrents of American life.
In 1986, Doctorow finally received the National Book Award with the publication of World’s Fair. This novel, the central character of which is named Edgar, showcases Doctorow’s ability to seamlessly blend fiction and reality; many have called the book a hybrid of novel and memoir. Set in 1930s Bronx, New York, the novel not only questions the line between fact and fiction but also implies that the process of remembering involves creative invention.
In 1994, he published The Waterworks, which was less successful than some of his previous novels but which again employed historical fiction to provide a less-tainted vision of late nineteenth-century New York City. One interesting component of this novel was the somewhat frequent appearance of ellipses. By incorporating ellipses into the text, Doctorow drew the reader’s attention to the possibility of missing narrative, simultaneously constructing and deconstructing his own story.
In 2000, with the publication of City of God, Doctorow continued to make use of spaces, ellipses, fragmented narrative, and multiple narrators. The novel is unique because it deals directly with theological and cosmological concerns (a major strand of the narrative involves the disappearance of a cross from a church and its mysterious reappearance atop a lower East Side synagogue in New York). It also makes creative use of thematic elements that are distinctively Jewish: the Holocaust and Midrash (in the form of the Midrash Jazz Quartet). While Doctorow considered this novel to be one of his masterpieces, many critics found it to be fragmented.
Doctorow continued to be concerned with the question of how the universe and personal history bear on each other and how their interaction materializes in the context of contemporary religious, political, cultural, and artistic impulses. These concerns are dealt with specifically in Reporting the Universe, his 2003 collection of essays. He returned to historical fiction in 2005 with the publication of The March, which was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award. It was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and nominated for the National Book Award. His return to the historical-fiction genre proved to be a brief hiatus from his larger philosophical concerns, however, to which he returned in 2006 with the publication of Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993–2006. In 2009, he published Homer and Langley. Into his eighties, Doctorow continued to publish short fiction and essays in many publications, including the Kenyon Review, the New Yorker, The Nation, and the New York Times. In 2014 he published Andrew's Brain, which would be his last novel.
Doctorow, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer on July 21, 2015, in Manhattan. He was eighty-four years old and is survived by his wife, three children, and four grandchildren.
Significance
Doctorow’s consistent literary output is impressive; he generated one of the most substantial bodies of work of any twentieth-century American writer. Beyond his prolific presence in the American literary canon, given the high number of award-winning novels that he wrote, his work in the genre of historical fiction is especially significant. One cannot speak of historical fiction without referencing Doctorow. His writing is important not only to the world of literature and literary studies but also to the realm of history. By drawing the reader’s attention to the interplay between fiction and reality, Doctorow reveals deeper truths about American history, society, and culture.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold. E. L. Doctorow. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2002. Print.
Doctorow, E. L. "Doctorow Ruminates on How a 'Brain' Becomes a Mind." Interview by Scott Simon. NPR. NPR, 11 Jan. 2014. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
Farrant Bevilacqua, Winifred. "Loon Lake: E. L. Doctorow's Pastoral Romance." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 53.1 (2012): 49–65. Print.
Marandi, Seyyed Mohammad, and Zohreh Ramin. "Edgar Lawrence Doctorow: A Political Novelist?." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (2012): 465. Print.
Morris, Christopher D., ed. Conversations with E. L. Doctorow. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2002. Print.
Ramin, Zohreh, and Seyyed Mohammad Marandi. "Failure to Construct a Meaningful Border for Democracy in E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel." Life Science Journal 10.1 (2013). Print.
Saunders, George. "The Bravery of E. L. Doctorow." New Yorker. Conde Nast, 23 July 2015. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.
Siegel, Ben, ed. Critical Essays on E. L. Doctorow. New York: Hall, 2000. Print.
Weber, Bruce. "E. L. Doctorow Dies at 84; Literary Time Traveler Stirred Past into Fiction." New York Times. New York Times, 21 July 2015. Web. 2 Sept. 2015.