Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow
Introduction "Loon Lake" is an important American novel in it's portrayal of the Great Depression of 30's ; a passionate, young New Jersey man leaves home to find his fortune. What he finds, on a cold and lonely night in the Adirondack Mountains, is a vision of life so different from his own that it changes his destiny, leading him from the side of a railroad track to a magical place called "Loon Lake". It is a haunting story of dreams and desires. The novel traces the journeys of a young man during the Great Depression. He leaves Paterson, New Jersey, to seek his fortune and finds himself entrapped in the world of Loon Lake, where he confronts the tyranny of wealth and power. The book is thus a vehicle for Doctorow's indictments of American capitalism.
Author Overview The novel was written in 1980 by a contemporaneous author named E. L. Doctorow. E. L. Doctorow is generally considered to be among the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. Doctorow was born in 1931 and fantasized about the 1930's crime life as a child. He is an American novelist, short story writer, editor, essayist, as well as dramatist. Highly-regarded and controversial; Doctorow's work is characterized by serious philosophical probing, a subtle and diverse prose style and placement of historical figures in unusual, sometimes bizarre situations and settings. Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. His novels stretch the limits of the literary genres. His works include Big as Life, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, World's Fair, Lives of the Poets: Six Stories and a Novella, a play entitled Drinks Before Dinner and of course "Loon Lake" which portrays American life during the Great Depression. In "Loon Lake" (1980), Doctorow continued to experiment with prose style, as he explored yet another period in American history, the Depression. The novel moves not linearly, but in concentric circles, to set
Author Overview The novel was written in 1980 by a contemporaneous author named E. L. Doctorow. E. L. Doctorow is generally considered to be among the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. Doctorow was born in 1931 and fantasized about the 1930's crime life as a child. He is an American novelist, short story writer, editor, essayist, as well as dramatist. Highly-regarded and controversial; Doctorow's work is characterized by serious philosophical probing, a subtle and diverse prose style and placement of historical figures in unusual, sometimes bizarre situations and settings. Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. His novels stretch the limits of the literary genres. His works include Big as Life, The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, World's Fair, Lives of the Poets: Six Stories and a Novella, a play entitled Drinks Before Dinner and of course "Loon Lake" which portrays American life during the Great Depression. In "Loon Lake" (1980), Doctorow continued to experiment with prose style, as he explored yet another period in American history, the Depression. The novel moves not linearly, but in concentric circles, to set