We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.
These dazzling short works are crafted with all the weight and resonance of the novels for which E. L. Doctorow is famous. You will find yourself set down in a mysterious redbrick house in rural Illinois (‘A House on the Plains’), working things out with a baby-kidnapping couple in California (‘Baby Wilson’), living on a religious-cult commune in Kansas (‘Walter John Harmon’), sharing the heartrending cross-country journey of a young woman navigating her way through three bad marriages (‘Jolene: A Life’), and witnessing an FBI special agent at a personal crossroads while he investigates a grave breach of White House Security (‘Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden’).
Comprised in a variety of moods and voices, these remarkable portrayals of the American spiritual landscape show a modern master at the height of his powers.
Comprised in a variety of moods and voices, these remarkable portrayals of the American spiritual landscape show a modern master at the height of his powers.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
** 'Powerfully compact and direct
** 'The perfect short story is a novel boiled down to a bouillon cube, or perhaps a single drop of water with a world reflected in its surface. These intense, vivid snapshots of the American psyche, by that old wizard, E.L. "ragtime" Doctorow, come close to that platonic ideal ... Doctorow has a deep respect for all his characters, and a genius for finding remarkable things in outwardly unremarkable lives
** 'The exact use of language, allied to an underlying compassion, makes this writer hugely appealing
** 'Though they number just five, each of these masterful short stories lingers in the mind with the weight of a far longer work