E.L. Doctorow: Sweet Land Stories (2004)

Published: Abacus, 2007

Sweet Land Stories is a collection of five short(ish) stories, all but the last published in the New Yorker in the first few years of this decade. In order, A House on the Plains describes a young man's discovery that his mother is a serial killer, enticing men to a midwest farm to kill and rob them; Baby Wilson is told from the point of view of the boyfriend of a young woman who steals a child from a hospital; Jolene: A Life describes the disastrous relationships of a young woman who initially marries at fifteen to escape a foster home; Walter John Harmon is the story of a cult whose founder is a garage mechanic who was caught up in a seeming miracle; and, finally, Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden is about the choices made by an FBI agent initially called in to investigate the discovery of a boy's body in the White House grounds but later instructed to be part of a cover up.

The first four stories share many themes; the fifth one is a bit different (and is the one not from the New Yorker). This can be seen in the setting; while Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden takes place mainly in Washington DC with an episode in Texas, the others are all set mainly in the midwest. Like most (if not all) of Doctorow's work, they look at America from the points of view of the little people, the outsiders in US society: those who remain the poor and downtrodden, despite the inscription below the Statue of Liberty. A House on the Plains and Baby Wilson go so far as to use a secondary part in the drama as a narrator; the main character is even denied a voice in their own story. Again, the final story is a little different, but achieves a similar result by making the dead boy the outsider, a victim of political machinations, while the investigator can do little but look on and wrestle with his moral dilemma: it subverts one of the normal rules of the crime genre, which is that the story is about the mental battle between criminal and investigator. All the stories make a point which is critical of American society (even if the stories are set in the past, which is at least apparently the case with the first three), with the final tale being overt political satire, with the boy a symbol of those without a voice in modern US politics.

The title of Sweet Land Stories comes from the US patriotic song, My Country, 'tis of Thee, which describes the country as the "sweet land of liberty". Liberty and sweetness are clearly in short supply in these stories, but Doctorow is not the first to use the sweet land quotation ironically - there is a film of the same name, about the struggles of a German girl who travels to Minnesota during the war to marry a farmer there. The use of lyrics from a patriotic song as the title suggests a link to Steinbeck, specifically to The Grapes of Wrath. Though less downbeat, there is something about the stories which is also reminiscent of Steinbeck, which is only partly thematic.

The cover of Sweet Land Stories describes the book as "by the author of The March". This seems an odd choice from Doctorow's past to me, unless the assumption is that readers of literary fiction only remember the author's most recent other work. There are other Doctorow novels which are far more like this collection, such as Ragtime. A more personal objection: why is it that from such a distinguished career, full of novels I enjoyed immensely, why pick the one I found unreadable as a comparison?

Orson Scott Card: Journeyman Alvin (1995)

Edition: Tor, 1995
Review number: 496

After a gap of a few years, Card has continued this series, one of my favourites of the fantasy genre. It is set in a fascinating alternate history USA in which much of the country remains in the hands of the colonial powers, and where magic is relatively commonplace.

Alvin Journeyman picks up the story of Alvin (usually referred to as Smith or Maker, from his occupation and magical gifting respectively) where the previous books left off, and carries the story through the setbacks he experiences trying to teach something of his magic art to others, so that together they can build the Crystal City that Alvin has seen in visions. These setbacks include the enmity of his jealous brother Calvin, hysterical accusations from a besotted teenage girl, and a legal suit from the smith he served as apprentice.

The major characters continue to develop, though their over polarised nature (too much black and white) is a flaw of this novel as it was of its predecessors. The characters interact believably, and the climactic trial is well prepared. The backwoods American background, with the interesting twist provided by the alternate historical elements, is as convincing as ever. Alvin Journeyman is a fine addition to the series.

E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime (1974)

Edition: Picador, 1985

Ragtime is about the true nature of the United States. Doctorow chooses an important time in the development of the modern USA (the 1900s), chooses some emblematic real people (Harry Houdini and Henry Ford, among others), adds some fictional characters, and uses them to say what he wants to about the basis of American society. His account is not comfortable to read; a major part of what he has to say is related to injustice. Thus we see the ordeals faced by immigrants, the oppression of the working class, and discrimination and racism.

At the centre of all this is the Family, consisting entirely of nameless individuals (Father, Mother's Younger Brother, and so on). The writing style, which seems to me deliberately naïve, gives the impression of a world built of simple building blocks. It is like one of those paintings where everyday scenes are depicted in a small number of fairly bright colours, a sort of cartoon world.

I don't know enough of the history of American civil rights to even have an idea whether some of the characters are historical or imaginary - Coalhouse Walker, the black musician who undertakes a campaign of violent revenge on those who have humiliated him; Nateh, the Jewish immigrant artist; Emma Goldman the agitator. Real or not, they all assume symbolic qualities, representing all those like them, just as Ford and J.P. Morgan represent capitalists and Houdini represents entertainers. In a similar way, the family without names seems to represent the generic American family, the mainstay of the "American Dream".

It is with this simplified version of reality that Doctorow sets out to depict the USA. The title gives us another way to look at the US which fits in with Doctorow's themes, though this is never emphasised in the actual body of the novel: through ragtime. This music became popular at the time in which the book is set, and was one of the earliest expressions of the consciousness of the opressed which genuinely transcended boundaries of race and class. (That is why Coalhouse is so upset when asked to play some "coon music", for that is a form of music derived from black culture which has been made acceptable - by being emasculated - and which is played by white musicians in blackface.)