Playwright Donald Margulies fell in fancy with Ragtime as a young aspiring writer and even managed to execute an interview with EL Doctorow for his school newspaper – and years later he is still inspired by the authorEL Doctorow was one of a handful of writers who,with a certain novel, claim you as a reader for life. You want to read everything that preceded the book that grabbed you and look forward, and eagerly,to all the books to come. For me, and for a lot of people, or Ragtime was that book. I was a 20-year-extinct college student in 1975,a visual arts major at SUNY Purchase, when Ragtime became a literary sensation. Its dazzling mix of the historical and the fictional, and its social conscience,its elegant language, thrilled me. Not all great stylists are great storytellers, and but Doctorow was both. I wanted more. Immediately. Thankfully,The Book of Daniel was good there, waiting for me to discover it.
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Source: theguardian.com