Sweet Land Stories

New York: Random House, 2004. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [8], 147, [5] pages. Signed by the author on the title page. The contents are: A House on the Plains; Baby Wilson; Jolene: A Life; Walter John Harmon; and Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden. Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 - July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction. He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama. They included the award-winning novels Ragtime (1975), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005). These, like many of his other works, placed fictional characters in recognizable historical contexts, with known historical figures, and often used different narrative styles. His stories were recognized for their originality and versatility, and Doctorow was praised for his audacity and imagination.
A number of Doctorow's novels and short stories were also adapted for the screen, including Welcome to Hard Times (1967) starring Henry Fonda, Daniel (1983) starring Timothy Hutton, Billy Bathgate (1991) starring Dustin Hoffman, and Wakefield (2016) starring Bryan Cranston. His most notable adaptations were for the film Ragtime (1981) and the Broadway musical of the same name (1998), which won four Tony Awards. Doctorow was the recipient of numerous writing awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Ragtime, National Book Critics Circle Award for Billy Bathgate, National Book Critics Circle Award for The March, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction. Former President Barack Obama called him "one of America's greatest novelists". To support his family, Doctorow spent nine years as a book editor, first at New American Library working with Ian Fleming and Ayn Rand among others; and from 1964, as editor-in-chief at Dial Press, publishing work by James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Ernest J. Gaines, and William Kennedy, among others. In 1969, Doctorow left publishing to pursue a writing career. He accepted a position as Visiting Writer at the University of California, Irvine, where he completed The Book of Daniel (1971), a freely fictionalized consideration of the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was widely acclaimed, called a "masterpiece" by The Guardian, and said by The New York Times to launch the author into "the first rank of American writers" according to Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. Doctorow's next book, written in his home in New Rochelle, New York, was Ragtime (1975), later named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library editorial board. His subsequent work includes the award-winning novels World's Fair (1985), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005), as well as several volumes of essays and short fiction. One of America's premier writers turns his astonishing narrative powers to the short story in five dazzling explorations of who we are as a people and how we live. Ranging over the American continent from Alaska to Washington, D.C., these superb short works are crafted with all the weight and resonance of the novels for which E. L. Doctorow is famous. You will find yourself set down in a mysterious redbrick townhouse in rural Illinois, working things out with a baby-kidnapping couple in California), living on a religious-cult commune in Kansas, and sharing the heartrending cross-country journey of a young woman navigating her way through three bad marriages to a kind of bruised but resolute independence. And in the stunning Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden, you will witness a special agent of the FBI finding himself at a personal crossroads while investigating a grave breach of White House security. Derived from a Kirkus review: A riveting collection of five tightly plotted long stories on a favorite Doctorow theme: the tension between American institutions and the criminal elements that undermine them. In the first of its chronologically arranged narratives, "A House on the Plains," blandly amoral young Earle describes life on the lam with his resourceful mother, a serial seducer and "widow of several insured husbands," as they cut a murderous path through the heartland. "Baby Wilson" tells of an infant kidnapped from a hospital by a possibly insane beauty and her smitten accomplice; Doctorow deftly reverses our initial impressions of the two and even contrives a surprisingly benign ending. "Jolene: A Life" is a more generic account of a young female drifter's progress through three disillusioning marriages toward premature middle age and disenfranchisement from even the tinselly pop-culture dreams that sustain her. "Walter John Harmon" depicts with quiet irony its unnamed narrator's growing allegiance to a Kansas religious cult (The Community) spearheaded by an inarticulate underachiever with messianic delusions. The narrator dutifully acknowledges that his self-sacrificing mentor "took our evil unto himself" and passively accepts ultimate evidence of Harmon's courageous embrace of "sin and disgrace": his appropriation of the narrator's beautiful wife and The Community's donated wealth. It's a tale capped by a savage, monitory final twist. "Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden" is even better, as a retired FBI agent recalls his investigation of the title incident, the suppression of its details by an embarrassed administration, and a journey to Texas that discloses a defiant gesture aimed at the conscienceless "men who run things." The story unfolds with authority, velocity, and suspense that made books like Ragtime and Billy Bathgate so vivid and memorable. Fascinating work from a contemporary master.