By and large, 1960’s radicals did not know much about the history of the Left, and the traditional Left has done little to pass on its past, so that young men like Daniel feel isolated, bereft, and angry about their lack of connection to a heritage of social protest.ĭaniel mourns the loss of his family. Through this personal story, Doctorow conducts an analysis of the failure of American radicalism, of one generation to speak to another. Concerned less with whether the couple was actually guilty of spying than with uncovering his own identity, Daniel tracks down and interviews those who had been closest to his parents. He sets out to investigate what happened to his parents while trying to come to terms with his own 1960’s brand of radicalism. Centering on a couple (who bear a striking resemblance to spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg) who were executed for espionage (supposedly for stealing the “secret” of the atomic bomb for the Soviet Union), the story is narrated by one of their children, Daniel. Characteristic of Doctorow’s deft handling of important political themes and historical periods is The Book of Daniel, a major political novel about the Cold War period of the 1950’s. Doctorow is deadly serious about the “hard times” and grave flaws in American culture, but he usually finds a way to present his criticism in a comic vein.ĭoctorow’s fiction is often set in the past, during an identifiable historical period-the 1870’s, the 1920’s, the 1930’s Depression, the 1950’s, or the 1960’s. The title of the novel, for example, is a kind of genial welcome, an invitation to have some fun with the pieties and clichés of the Western. Perhaps the reason is that alongside his ironic use of popular genres runs a deep affection for the literary forms he burlesques. It is a paradoxical aspect of Doctorow’s success that his parodies of popular genres are themselves usually best-sellers.
Indeed, Doctorow’s fiction shows again and again an America whose myths do not square with its history. The reality of American history has been much grimmer than its literature or its popular entertainment has ever acknowledged. In fact, Doctorow’s novel implies the West was chaotic and demonic, and order was not usually restored in the fashion of a Hollywood Western.
Doctorow’s vision, however, is much bleaker than that of the traditionalWestern and cannot be encompassed by the usual shootout or confrontation between the sheriff and the outlaw. The plot and characters echo classicWestern films such as High Noon (1952) with their solitary heroes who oppose villains’ tyrannizing of a community. The struggle in Welcome to Hard Times is between the Man from Bodie, who in a fit of rage destroys a town in a single day, and Blue, the tragic old man who almost singlehandedly tries to rebuild it.
At the same time, he writes from within the genre by maintaining the customary strong opposition between good and evil, between the “bad guys” and the “good guys,” and by fashioning a simple but compelling plot line. Knowing that the Western has often been the vehicle for the celebration of American individualism and morality, Doctorow purposely writes a fablelike novel in which he questions American faith in fairness and democracy. Even when his subject is not overtly political-as in his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times-he chooses the genre of the Western to comment upon the American sense of crime and justice. Doctorow’s (Janu– July 21, 2015) work is concerned with those stories, myths, public figures, and literary and historical forms that have shaped public and political consciousness.