Ragtime

Name: Ragtime
Rating: 4.2 (3314 reviews)

by E. L. Doctorow

First published 1975

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4.2(3,314)

Beginning in New Rochelle in 1906, the novel brings together an affluent white family, the Jewish immigrant Tateh and his daughter, and the Black ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. Their lives intersect as industrial wealth, mass immigration, new technology and racial injustice transform American society before the First World War.

Historical figures including Harry Houdini, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan and Evelyn Nesbit move through the fictional story. Tateh’s reinvention in the emerging film industry contrasts with Coalhouse’s increasingly desperate demand for justice after racist humiliation and official indifference. The result is a family saga about social mobility, political violence and the unequal terms of American progress.

The novel’s historical figures are not simply decorative cameos. Their presence connects private stories to mass production, celebrity culture, labour politics and the new technologies changing American life. By placing fictional families beside Ford, Morgan, Goldman and Houdini, Doctorow shows modernity arriving unevenly: opportunity expands for some characters while racial violence and economic inequality sharply limit it for others.