![]() This included taking on many of the less savory aspects of our history, racism and slavery, machine politics and racketeering, the sheer desolation of so much of the Western experience, the execution of the Rosenbergs-yet never as a simple listing of evils, but always in the context of a great nation, shaped by imperfect men. He did serious work instead on the grand canvas of the American past, inexplicably neglected by so many of our writers. He had pioneered the historical novel as a serious genre in this country, rescuing it from the domain of bodice-rippers and boys’ adventure tales. He was, after all, a giant in our field, and in American letters in general. I approached Doctorow with considerable trepidation. It was his first crack at a contemporary novel since Big As Life, an early, experimental work, and I spoke to him about both books in a piece for the late, lamented Talk magazine. ![]() ![]() Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was a man of rare tolerance and forbearance, as I can attest: I had the opportunity to interview him when City of God was published in 2000. ![]()
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