Edgar lawrence doctorow biography of albert einstein

E. L. Doctorow

Novelist, editor and professor (–)

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, – July 21, ) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction.

He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama, including the award-winning novels Ragtime (), Billy Bathgate (), and The March ().

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    • These, like many of his other works, placed fictional characters in recognizable historical contexts, with known historical figures, and often used different narrative styles. His stories were recognized for their originality and versatility, and Doctorow was praised for his audacity and imagination.[1]

    A number of Doctorow's novels and short stories were also adapted for the screen, including Welcome to Hard Times () starring Henry Fonda, Daniel () starring Timothy Hutton, Billy Bathgate () starring Dustin Hoffman, and Wakefield () starring Bryan Cranston.

    His most notable adaptations were for the film Ragtime () and the Broadway musical of the same name (), which won four Tony Awards.[note 1]

    Doctorow was the recipient of numerous writing awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award which he was awarded three different times (for Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and The March).

    At the time of his death, President Barack Obama called him "one of America's greatest novelists".[2]

    Early life

    Doctorow was born January 6, ,[3] in the Bronx, the son of Rose (Levine) and David Richard Doctorow, second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish extraction who named him after Edgar Allan Poe.[4] His father ran a small music shop.[5] He attended city public grade schools and the Bronx High School of Science where, surrounded by mathematically gifted children, he fled to the office of the school literary magazine, Dynamo, which published his first literary effort.

    He then enrolled in a journalism class to increase his opportunities to write.[6]

    Doctorow attended Kenyon College in Ohio, where he studied with John Crowe Ransom, acted in college theater productions and majored in philosophy. While at Kenyon College, Doctorow joined the Middle Kenyon Association, and befriended Richard H.

    Collin.[7][8] After graduating with honors in , he completed a year of graduate work in English drama at Columbia University before being drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In and , he served as a corporal in the Signal Corps in West Germany.[9][10]

    Back in New York after military service, Doctorow worked as a reader for a motion picture company.

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    • Reading so many Westerns inspired his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times. Begun as a parody of western fiction, it evolved into a reclamation of the genre.[11] It was published to positive reviews in , with Wirt Williams of The New York Times describing it as "taut and dramatic, exciting and successfully symbolic."[12]

    When asked how he decided to become a writer, he said, "I was a child who read everything I could get my hands on.

    Eventually, I asked of a story not only what was to happen next, but how is this done? How am I made to live from words on a page?

    Biography of albert einstein summary Wutz: You have repeatedly said that your writing is largely the result of a process of trial and error, and that any rationale for the composition of a book is essentially a construct that is imposed in retrospect. So, there again it has to be left to the critic. Now, to go back to the first part of the question, it seems to me writers have always used children, I'm not sure that's specific to our moment. Gaines , and William Kennedy , among others.

    And so I became a writer."[13]

    Career

    "When you'd read Edgar's manuscripts, it was done. That's just the kind of writer he was; he got everything right the first time. I can't think of any editorial problem we had. Even remotely. Nothing."

    Jason Epstein, Doctorow's book editor[14]

    To support his family, Doctorow spent nine years as a book editor, first at New American Library working with Ian Fleming and Ayn Rand among others; and from , as editor-in-chief at Dial Press, publishing work by James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Ernest J.

    Gaines, and William Kennedy, among others.[15][16][17] During this time he published his second novel Big As Life (), which Doctorow has, subsequently, not allowed to be republished.[18][note 2]

    In , Doctorow left publishing to pursue a writing career.

    He accepted a position as Visiting Writer at the University of California, Irvine, where he completed The Book of Daniel (),[19] a freely fictionalized consideration of the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was widely acclaimed, called a "masterpiece" by The Guardian, and said by The New York Times to launch the author into "the first rank of American writers" according to Christopher Lehmann-Haupt.[20]

    Doctorow's next book, written in his home in New Rochelle, New York, was Ragtime (), later named one of the best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library editorial board.[21] His subsequent work includes the award-winning novels World's Fair (), Billy Bathgate (), and The March (), as well as several volumes of essays and short fiction.

    Novelist Jay Parini is impressed by Doctorow's skill at writing fictionalized history in a unique style, "a kind of detached but arresting presentation of history that mingled real characters with fictional ones in ways that became his signature manner".[22] In Ragtime, for example, he arranges the story to include Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung sharing a ride at Coney Island, or a setting with Henry Ford and J.

    P. Morgan.[22]

    Despite the immense research Doctorow needed to create stories based on real events and real characters, reviewer John Brooks notes that they were nevertheless "alive enough never to smell the research in old newspaper files that they must have required".[1] Doctorow demonstrated in most of his novels "that the past is very much alive, but that it's not easily accessed," writes Parini.

    "We tell and retell stories, and these stories illuminate our daily lives.

    Edgar lawrence doctorow biography of albert einstein for kids Wutz: The concluding segments of The Book of Daniel and World's Fair take place in a simulated and futuristic environment-the World's Fair and Disneyland-while the historical present of both novels is overshadowed by a war, in one instance the Second World War, in the other, Vietnam. Wutz: Children, of course, do play a great role in American literature, not just in this generation of writers. Sports Figures. I see his work coming out of a wonderfully errant religious sensibility that simply overwhelms the physical world.

    He showed us again and again that our past is our present, and that those not willing to grapple with 'what happened' will be condemned to repeat its worst errors."[22]

    Personal life and death

    In , Doctorow married fellow Columbia University student Helen Esther Setzer while serving in the U.S.

    Army in West Germany.[23][24] The couple had three children.[15]

    Doctorow also taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Yale School of Drama, the University of Utah, the University of California, Irvine, and Princeton University. He was the Loretta and Lewis Glucksman Professor of English and American Letters at New York University.

    In , he donated his papers to the Fales Library of New York University. In the opinion of the library's director, Marvin Taylor, Doctorow was "one of the most important American novelists of the 20th century".[25]

    Doctorow died of lung cancer on July 21, , aged 84, in Manhattan.[26] He is interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

    Awards and honors

    Works

    Novels

    Short story collections

    Nonfiction

    Other

    Short fiction

    TitlePublicationCollected in
    "Liner Notes: The Songs of Billy Bathgate"New American Review 2 ()All the Time in the World
    "The Foreign Legation"Vanity Fair (April )Lives of the Poets
    "Willi"The Atlantic (May )
    "The Leather Man"The Paris Review 92 (Summer )
    "The Writer in the Family"Esquire (August )
    "The Hunter"Lives of the Poets (November )
    "The Water Works"
    "Lives of the Poets"
    "Heist"The New Yorker (April 21, )All the Time in the World
    "A House on the Plains"The New Yorker (June 18, )Sweet Land Stories
    "Baby Wilson"The New Yorker (March 25, )
    "Jolene: A Life"The New Yorker (December 23, )
    "Walter John Harmon"The New Yorker (May 12, )
    "Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden"Virginia Quarterly Review (Spring )
    "Wakefield"The New Yorker (January 14, )All the Time in the World
    "All the Time in the World"The Kenyon Review (Winter )
    "Edgemont Drive"The New Yorker (April 26, )
    "Assimilation"The New Yorker (November 22, )
    "The Drummer Boy on Independence Day"The New Yorker (July , )-

    Notes

    1. ^To be precise, the film version of Ragtime did not use the screenplay adaptation that Doctorow wrote.

      According to the publisher’s note for Three Screenplays (see the Bibliography section), Doctorow wrote screenplay adaptations of three of his works― The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, and Loon Lake: “Each of these screenplays has undergone a different fate. Doctorow's script for Daniel was made into a feature film by director Sidney Lumet in The monumental Ragtime screenplay he wrote for director Robert Altman was to have been filmed as either a six-hour feature film or a ten-hour television series.

      When Altman was replaced on the project by Milos Forman, a shorter, more conventional script was commissioned from another writer. In , Doctorow adapted Loon Lake, but this challenging work has yet to be filmed.”

    2. ^Though Doctorow believed that Big as Life was a failure, in an interview from Doctorow said he thought he could fix the novel and “make it work,” implying that he wouldn’t let it back in print until it was revised.

    References

    1. ^ ab"E.L.

      Doctorow Dies at 84; Literary Time Traveler Stirred Past Into Fiction", The New York Times, July 21,

    2. ^"US novelist EL Doctorow dies at 84", BBC, July 22,
    3. ^"UPI Almanac for Sunday, Jan. 6, ". United Press International. January 6, Archived from the original on September 11, Retrieved September 10,
    4. ^Wutz, Michael.

      "The E.L. Doctorow I Remember", Newsweek, July 22,

    5. ^Intersections: E.L. Doctorow on Rhythm and Writing, June 28,
    6. ^American Conversation: E.L. DoctorowArchived March 4, , at the Wayback Machine, September 25,
    7. ^"Literary giant". Kenyon News. Gambier, OH: Kenyon College. July 22, Archived from the original on November 4, Retrieved November 4,
    8. ^"A group of Middle Kenyon (non-fraternal) residents in Included are Roger Hecht '55, Richard H.

      Collin '54, E.L. Doctorow '52, William T. Goldhurst '53, Martin Nemer '52, Harvey Robbin III '52, and Stanford B. Benjamin '53".

      Edgar lawrence doctorow biography of albert einstein scientist Bush's arguments in favor of invading Iraq in , challenging Bush's assertions that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was in league with the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Several of his novels have been made into films. And that led me to the novella that anchors the book. When one thinks of the size of the communities in the past that have produced periods of flourishing fiction, they were much smaller and more visible as class societies, so that, for example, Dickens writing about London could rely on certain things that everybody knew-certain types of people, the middle class, the merchant class, the class of tradesmen, the working class and the upper class, with self portraying patterns of speech for each class.

      Kenyon News. Gambier, OH: Kenyon College. July 22, Retrieved November 4,

    9. ^"Beloved Historical Fiction Author E.L. Doctorow Dead At 84", Huffington Post, July 21,
    10. ^"E.L. Doctorow, acclaimed author of historical fiction, dies at 84", PBS, July 21,
    11. ^"Interview: E.L. Doctorow discusses the art of writing and his new book of essays, Reporting the Universe".

      Talk of the Nation. NPR. Retrieved February 9,

    12. ^Williams, Wirt. "'Welcome to Hard Times'", The New York Times, September 25,
    13. ^"EL Doctorow, author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate, dies in New York aged 84", The Guardian, U.K., July 22,
    14. ^"E.L. Doctorow’s Longtime Editor: 'No One Could Possibly Say a Bad Word About Him'", Vanity Fair, July 22,
    15. ^ ab"E L Doctorow, author – obituary".

      The Telegraph. July 22, Retrieved July 22,

    16. ^ abcHomberger, Eric (July 22, ). "EL Doctorow obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved July 22,
    17. ^Jones, Malcolm (July 21, ). "E.L. Doctorow's Readers Were Guaranteed a Good Time".

      The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 23,

    18. ^Epplin, Luke (March 12, ). "Big as Life: E.L. Doctorow's prescient, forgotten sci-fi novel". Paris Review.
    19. ^Robinson, Will (July 21, ). "E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime author, dies at 84". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved July 23,
    20. ^Review of 'The Book of Daniel', The New York Times, June 7,
    21. ^"Modern Library: Best Novels".

      Random House. Retrieved September 5,

    22. ^ abc"E.L. Doctorow's gift", CNN, July 22,
    23. ^Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook () by Joel Shatzky and Michael Taub, pp. 54
    24. ^Woo, Elaine (July 21, ).

      "E.L. Doctorow dies at 84; 'Ragtime' author turned history into myth". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 22,

    25. ^"From Ragtime to Our Time E.L. Doctorow Donates His Papers to NYU’S Fales Library", New York University, April 19,
    26. ^Weber, Bruce (July 21, ). "E.L.

      Doctorow, Author of Historical Fiction, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved July 21,

    27. ^Ragtime wins the National Book Critics Circle Award. History Channel. Retrieved July 22,
    28. ^"National Book Awards – ". NBF. Retrieved March 26,
    29. ^"Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement".

      . American Academy of Achievement.

    30. ^"New York State Author and State Poet Awards".

      Biography of thomas alva edison: As research for the book, Doctorow read Sherman's writings and asked medical experts about battlefield surgery during the Civil War. And a lot of raging fanatics are running around in Europe and the Mid-East. Doctorow, Ragtime author, dies at 84". Personal life and death [ edit ].

      Albany University.

    31. ^"E.L. Doctorow - Artist". MacDowell.
    32. ^Johnson, M. Alex (July 21, ). "E.L. Doctorow, Acclaimed Author of 'Ragtime' and 'Billy Bathgate,' Dies at 84". NBC News. Retrieved July 22,
    33. ^"Doctorow's 'Bathgate' Wins Faulkner Award".

      The New York Times. April 7, Retrieved July 22,

    34. ^The William Dean Howells MedalArchived March 14, , at the Wayback Machine. American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved July 22,
    35. ^"Winners of the National Humanities Medal and the Charles Frankel Prize". National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

      Archived from the original on July 21, Retrieved September 5,

    36. ^"National Humanities Medal: Nominations", Retrieved March 26,
    37. ^E.L. Doctorow. Tulsa Library Trust's Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Retrieved July 22,
    38. ^"Kenyon Review for Literary Achievement".

      Kenyon Review.

    39. ^"Beloved Historical Fiction Author E.L. Doctorow Dead At 84". The Huffington Post. July 21, Retrieved July 21,
    40. ^Thompson, Bob (February 21, ). "Doctorow's 'The March' Wins Top Honor". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 22,
    41. ^"APS Member History".

      . Retrieved May 14,

    42. ^"Saint Louis Literary Award". . Saint Louis University. Archived from the original on August 23, Retrieved July 25,
    43. ^Saint Louis University Library Associates. "Noted Novelist E.L. Doctorow to be Honored as 41st Annual Saint Louis Literary Award Recipient".

      Archived from the original on September 20, Retrieved July 25,

    44. ^ PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. PEN American Center. Retrieved July 22,
    45. ^James McBride wins US National Book Award, BBC News, November 21,
    46. ^Gold MedalArchived October 13, , at the Wayback Machine.

      American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved July 22,

    47. ^Alison Flood. "E.L. Doctorow wins Library of Congress prize for American fiction", The Guardian, April 17, Retrieved December 19,
    48. ^Robertson, Michael (). "Cultural Hegemony Goes to the Fair: The Case of E.L. Doctorow's World's Fair".

      University of Kansas. Retrieved July 22,

    49. ^Scott, A. O. (March 5, ). "A Thinking Man's Miracle". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22,
    50. ^Kaufman, Leslie (March 28, ). "A New Doctorow Novel". The New York Times.
    51. ^Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (November 6, ).

      "Lives of the Poets". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22,

    52. ^"'Jack London, Hemingway and the Constitution'", The New York Times, November 4,
    53. ^Powers, Ron (September 24, ). "Text Messages". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22,
    54. ^Eder, Richard (November 24, ).

      "Stage: Doctorow's 'Drinks Before Dinner'". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22,

    55. ^Conversations with E.L. Doctorow () by E.L. Doctorow and Christopher D. Morris, chronology
    56. ^Doctorow, E.L. (September 9, ). "How Then Can He Mourn?".

    Further reading

    • Arana-Ward, Marie (April 17, ).

      "E.L. Doctorow". Washington Post. p.&#;X6.

    • Baba, Minako (Summer ). "The Young Gangster as Mythic American Hero: ow's Billy Bathgate". Varieties of Ethnic Criticism. 18 (2). Oxford University Press: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS): 33– doi/ JSTOR&#;
    • Bloom, Harold, ed.

      (). E.L. Doctorow. Chelsea House. ISBN&#;.

    • E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations. Chelsea House. ISBN&#;.
    • Fowler, Douglas (). Understanding E.L. Doctorow. University of South Carolina. ISBN&#;.
    • Girgus, Sam B.

      (). The New Covenant: Jewish Writers and the American Idea. University of North Carolina Press.

    • Harter, Carol C.; Thompson, James R. (). ow. Gale Group.
    • Henry, Matthew A. Problematized Narratives: History as Friction in E.L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate.

      Edgar lawrence doctorow biography of albert einstein Doctorow and Kushner decried what they saw as a trend in American culture and politics toward more tolerance of lying and the blurring of fact and fiction. In the opinion of the library's director, Marvin Taylor, Doctorow was "one of the most important American novelists of the 20th century". It was widely acclaimed, called a "masterpiece" by The Guardian , and said by The New York Times to launch the author into "the first rank of American writers" according to Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. E-mail: Show my email publicly.

      Critique Magazine.

    • Jameson, Frederic. (). Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press.
    • Leonard, John (June 10, ). The Prophet. The New York Review of Books.
    • Levine, Paul (). E.L. Doctorow. New York: Methuen.
    • Matterson, Stephen.

      "Why Not Say What Happened: E.L. Doctorow's Lives of the Poets". Critique.

    • McGowan, Todd (). "In This Way He Lost Everything: The Price of Satisfaction in E.L. Doctorow's 'World's Fair'". Critique. 42.
    • Miller, Ann V. "Through a Glass Clearly: Vision as Structure in E.L. Doctorow's Willi".

      Studies in Short Fiction.

    • Morgenstern, Naomi (). "The Primal Scene in the Public Domain: E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel". Studies in the Novel. 35.
    • Morris, Christopher D. (). Conversations with E.L. Doctorow. University of Mississippi Press.
    • Morris, Christopher D.

      (). Models of Misrepresentation: On the Fiction of E.L. Doctorow. University of Mississippi Press. ISBN&#;.

    • Porsche, Michael. (). Der Meta-Western: Studien zu E.L. Doctorow, Thomas Berger und Larry McMurtry (Arbeiten zur Amerikanistik). Verlag Die Blaue Eule.
    • Pospisil, Tomas ().

      The Progressive Era in American Historical Fiction: John Dos Passos' 'The 42nd Parallel and E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. Brno: Masarykova univerzita.

    • Shaw, Patrick W. (). The Modern American Novel of Violence. Whiston Press.
    • Siegel, Ben (). Critical Essays on E.L. Doctorow.

      G.K. Hall & Company.

    • Tokarczyk, Michelle M. (). E.L. Doctorow: An Annotated Bibliography. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities.
    • Tokarczyk, Michelle M. (). E.L. Doctorow's Skeptical Commitment. Peter Lang.
    • Trenner, Richard. (). E.L. Doctorow: Essays and Conversations.

      Ontario Review Press.

    • Williams, John. (). Fiction as False Document: The Reception of E.L. Doctorow In the Post Modern Age. Camden House.

    External links

    Book reviews

    • Rafferty, Terrence (January 12, ). "Andrew's Brain". NY Times.
    • Been, Eric Allen (January 17, ).

      "Andrew's Brain". Chicago Tribune.

    • Cooper, David. "Andrew's Brain". NY Journal of Books. Retrieved July 21,
    • McAlpin, Heller (January 17, ), "You might need to be a scientist to understand Andrew's Brain", Books, NPR
    • KCRW Bookworm Interviews, audio, with Michael Silverblatt:
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