American literature has, since the time of the Puritans, featured the jeremiad as a prolonged complaint, a prophet's indictment of his society characteristic of work such as the muckrakers' novels or Allan Ginsberg's "Howl." Doctorow struggles to accommodate this form to his artistry {as successful practitioners of the work have always done}. To this end, he has repeatedly adapted genres such as the Western, the romance, and the detective novel, often playing with accepted conventions, and thus avoiding didacticism.
( Michelle M. Tokarczyk )
[ E. L. Doctorow's Skeptical ]
www.QuoteSweet.com