Fiction as False Document

E.L. Doctorow, now a major member of the American literary establishment, has survived the controversy over his overtly political novels to become recognised as an artist whose place in the American tradition has been earned by his extension of it. This book surveys the reception of his novels, which span the era that saw traditionalist formalist criticism decline in favour of post-structural theories of language and culture. When Welcome to Hard Times (1960) was published, the scant notice it received praised its well-formed structure; by the time of Doctorow's major success, Ragtime (1975), the issues of politics, culture, and history loomed large on the critical landscape, and by the early 1980s, his work was seen overwhelmingly in terms of its postmodern style and scepticism, to such an extent that the theory of criticism drew attention away from his works themselves. Now, with current critical trends moving away from pure theory, his fiction has again become the main focus, with his later work as well as Ragtime receiving attention.

John Williams

John Williams (1922-1994) was born and raised in northeast Texas. Despite a talent for writing and acting, Williams flunked out of a local junior college after his first year. He reluctantly joined the war effort, enlisting in the Army Air Corps, and managing to write a draft of his first novel while there. Once home, Williams found a small publisher for the novel and enrolled at the University of Denver, where he was eventually to receive both his B.A. and M.A., and where he was to return as an instructor in 1954.