The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Doctorow actually had a role to play in the rise of the nostalgia industry. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Doctorow left behind a lifetime of sentences.Ĭopyright © 2015 NPR. And when I'm writing I like to seal everything off and face the wall and not to look outside the window so that the only way out is through the sentences. Doctorow, of course, spent his life pulling stories from his own mind.ĭOCTOROW: I seem to appreciate quiet. MONTAGNE: In this case, the book was set inside the mind of a man who was trying to get a story out. And suddenly you find yourself with your character. And in this case, it's the first line in the book where Andrew's saying I can tell you what I'm about to tell you, but it's not pretty. You start from these images that are very vocative to you. You don't start with an outline and a plan. He talked with our colleague Scott Simon about a novel published last year.ĭOCTOROW: The ideal way to get involved in this sort of work is to write in order to find out what you're writing.
MONTAGNE: Many books later he was able to describe his writing technique. As a young man he served in the Army, then as a book editor before publishing his first book at age 30. INSKEEP: Well, how is it done? It took Doctorow time to find the answer. And then another little line of inquiry comes into your head. You're reading for the excitement of it and to find out what happens next, just racing along. And, you know, at that age, something else happens if you're going to be a writer. His family was poor, but as he once told NPR, he had access to books.ĭOCTOROW: I was reading constantly everything I could get my hands on. INSKEEP: The author of these and other novels was a child of the Depression. There were immigrants." And an unforgettable black character, Coalhouse Walker, soon arrives driving a Model T Ford and demanding his rights. MONTAGNE: But soon the narrator is forced to revise that, quote, "apparently there were Negroes. On an early page, the narrator describes life this way, quote, "tennis rackets were hefty and the racket faces elliptical. INSKEEP: It is, to be clear, a white suburban life. In the early 20th century, a patriotic fireworks maker creates an idyllic suburban life for his family. MONTAGNE: And then there was "Ragtime," one of four Doctorow novels that became movies. Obscenely wealthy old men pay a mysterious scientist to give them eternal life, which he delivers only in the most technical sense. INSKEEP: His novel "The Waterworks" illuminated New York City soon after the war in what was called the Gilded Age. Sherman's real life march through the South. A fictional mixed race girl follows General William T. MONTAGNE: Doctorow's novel "The March" was set in the Civil War.
INSKEEP: You could set those books in chronological order and gain a provocative vision of the history of a changing nation. He set his books in turbulent American times. Doctorow, and he was a contender to be the national novelist. DOCTOROW: I think really of myself as a national novelist, as an American novelist writing about my country. Doctorow's books brought much of America and its history to life.Į.L. And now let's take a moment to remember E.L.
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