The Intersection of History and Personal Relationship in E.L. Doctorow's Literary World

E.L Doctorow's literary world is rare and compelling: history intertwined with the deeply personal. His stories provide the grand arc of historical events, the flow of history, complete with the violence and pain of war, the joy of sharing in splendid mess, and the tedium of ordinary lives, never detached from ordinary lives.

The Intersection of History and Personal Relationships in E.L. Doctorow's Literary World examines how Doctorow makes and draws from relationships - familial, romantic, and platonic - to represent history and history to represent relationships.

This book is inspired by my peculiar but fascinating fascination with how Doctorow reimagines history through the eyes of a person who otherwise would have been forgotten. Ragtime, The March, and The Book of Daniel show his gifts for combining personal lives with the public history, for telling stories in which the resonance goes far beyond the obvious.