num_pages: 320
description: Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century &amp; the First World War. The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, NY, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. Almost magically, the line between fantasy &amp; historical fact, between real &amp; imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud &amp; Emiliano Zapata slip in &amp; out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family &amp; other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler &amp; a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.
language: English
title: Ragtime
titlecomplete: Ragtime
characters: Coalhouse Walker, Evelyn Nesbit, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, Emma Goldman
genres: New York, Literature, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, American, Novels, Historical, Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 42944
places: New York City, New York, Manhattan, New York City, New York, New Rochelle, New York
awards: awardedAt: 189331200000
name: Nebula Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 157795200000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction
publisher: Modern Library