In Wednesday's Times Union, William Kennedy remembers his friend, E. L. Doctorow, who passed away on July 21, 2015:
"I feel something has gone out of American life with Ed gone and the other great writers we've lost," Kennedy said, mentioning the death of James Salter last month, Peter Matthiessen last year and Norman Mailer and Joe Heller in years past.
"In a certain sense, those were the guys I was talking to when I was writing," he said. "We were having long conversations with each other and the world in our novels."
More in the TU (new subscribers may need to sign up for TU+):
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/William-Kennedy-on-E-L-Doctorow-and-the-Albany-6411203.php
Showing posts with label e. l. doctorow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e. l. doctorow. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Kennedy Remembers Doctorow in the Times Union
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
E. L. Doctorow (1931-2015)
The New York State Writers Institute mourns the loss of E. L. Doctorow, novelist and editor. As an editor at The Dial Press, Doctorow acquired William Kennedy's first novel, The Ink Truck, in 1968.
Doctorow served as New York State Author under the Institute's sponsorship from 1989 to 1991.
Kennedy's 50 year friendship with Doctorow is detailed in a 2014 Times Union article by E. L. Doctorow at the time of his last visit to Albany in March 2014:
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-literary-friendship-spanning-five-decades-5289119.php
The New York Times obituary is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/books/el-doctorow-author-of-historical-fiction-dies-at-84.html?_r=0
Doctorow's State Author page: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/doctorow.html
YouTube footage from Doctorow's visit here in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLSc-ovXhTKHdJMhm8WSYAJ2-0McMME_0v&v=fOvEeCPj4yQ
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A Literary Friendship Spanning 5 Decades
Bill Kennedy's long friendship with E. L. Doctorow (who visited 2/27) is the subject of an article by Paul Grondahl in the Times Union:
"They are both in their 80s now, William Kennedy and E.L. Doctorow, two acclaimed American novelists whose literary friendship spans 50 years, three dozen books, a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, four National Book Critics Circle awards and a shelf of other prestigious fiction prizes between them."
"The two met in 1968 when Doctorow, an editor at The Dial Press, acquired Kennedy's first novel, The Ink Truck, a metaphysical tale loosely based on a 1964 newspaper strike at the Times Union, where Kennedy worked as a reporter...."
More in the TU: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-literary-friendship-spanning-five-decades-5289119.php
More about Doctorow's visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/doctorow_el14.html
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Elizabeth Floyd Mair interviews E. L. Doctorow in the Times Union
Q: Some critics might say that the focus of this novel is smaller and more confined than some of your earlier works, since it doesn't feature a large cast of characters but is just the voice of one man talking about his life. Yet to me it seemed vast anyway, because of the unexpected twists that Andrew's stories take. What's your sense of whether or not the story is smaller?
A: I would say rather that this novel is not formulaic fiction — it is not a linear narrative that has at its context a recognizable social reality — the world of business, say, or of domestic life, or of war. It is large on its own terms, as is an installation, or a cubist canvas that turns everything inside out.
More: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Seeing-through-another-s-eyes-5252956.php
Doctorow comes to UAlbany tomorrow, Thursday, 2/27:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/vws.html#doctorow
Monday, February 24, 2014
"A Highly Original Experiment in Historical Fiction": Doctorow's Ragtime.
In 1975, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the New York Times is awed by E. L. Doctorow's novel, Ragtime:
"It works so well that one devours it in a single sitting as if it were the most conventional of entertainments. And the reviewer is tempted to dispense with heavy breathing and analysis and settle down to mindless celebration of the pure fun of the thing.... But Ragtime works--and works so effortlessly that one hesitates to take it apart. Still, the questions persist: How does it work? Why do these historical images--half documentary-half invented--seem truer than the truth? And the answer is, for one obvious thing, they reflect all that is most significant and dramatic in America's last hundred years or so...."
More in the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/08/books/doctorow-ragtime.html?_r=0
Doctorow visits Albany to present his new novel, Andrew's Brain, this coming Thursday, February 27:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/doctorow_el14.html
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Trapped Inside the Human Brain-- E. L. Doctorow
E. L. Doctorow, one of the towering American novelists of the last 50 years, will visit the Writers Institute next week, to present his new novel, Andrew's Brain (2014), about the human mind and its puzzlements.More about the visit: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/doctorow_el14.html
Terrence Rafferty reviewed the novel on the front page of the New York Times Book Review:
"The sense of being trapped in your own consciousness is, of course, an occupational hazard for writers, but it’s not a problem you’d expect Doctorow to worry himself much about. His fiction has always seemed driven by intense curiosity about the world outside him, about the people of other times and how they lived. So it’s odd that in the past few years he has seemed so interested in characters like the Collyers and Andrew, who prefer to look inward and shun the wider view. They’re exotic specimens, baffled and lonely and pacing in their cages. It’s touching that Doctorow should want to study them, and although they’re essentially comic figures, he’s strangely solicitous of them; he respects the narrow space they find themselves living in."
More in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/books/review/andrews-brain-by-e-l-doctorow.html Read More......
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Ebert on Ragtime
We will screen the film Ragtime tomorrow 2/7 in anticipation of a visit by E. L. Doctorow, major American novelist, on Thursday, 2/27.
More about the film series: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html
Roger Ebert reviewed Ragtime in 1981:
"Ragtime is a loving, beautifully mounted, graceful film that creates its characters with great clarity. We understand where everyone stands, and most of the time we even know why."
More: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ragtime-1981
Picture: James Cagney in his final movie performance as New York Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo.
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