He forged his reputation around a series of novels - most set in and around New York City - that carried readers from the 1800s to modern times. His prizes included the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle award and both competitive and honorary National Book Awards. “This belief is akin to the scientist’s faith in the scientific method as a way to truth.”ĭoctorow was among the most honored authors of the past 40 years. “Underlying everything - the evocative flashes, the dogged working of language - is the writer’s belief in the story as a system of knowledge,” he wrote in the introduction to his essay collection “Creationists,” published in 2006. Student of political and literary history and how they tell us who we are now.ĭoctorow, who died Tuesday at age 84, was the rare American writer to move gracefully between lives as engaged citizen and solitary inventor. Commentator on wars and presidents and the laws of the land. Doctorow’s.Ĭonjurer of old-time gangsters and ragtime stars. NEW YORK – Few minds were as playful and as serious as E.L.
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