This was really a great novel that blended fact with fantasy, taking place from the early twentieth century up to the emergence of WWI. The novel was filled with vignettes of life in suburban New York during that time period and focused on a family that is not named but merely called Father, Mother, Son, and Mother's Younger Brother. There is also a Jewish family referred to as Mameh, Tateh, and The Little Girl. The lives of these two families intersect along with a large cast of real life personages including Houdini, Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Emma Goldman, Sigmund Freud, and Evelyn Nesbit. The novel told of among many other interesting tidbits, the story of Evelyn Nesbit and her involvement in a deadly and abusive triangle between railroad scion Harry Kendall Thaw and architect Stanford White, which resulted in White's murder by Thaw in 1906. Nesbit was considered a real beauty of the time and her dalliance with White resulted in the murder by her husband Thaw. I had never heard of this case but at the time it was considered the crime of the century.

And one of the stories that standout in the novel is that of Coalhouse Walker, a successful ragtime pianist, who has his new Model T Ford vandalized by racist firemen. His protest against his unjust treatment eventually ends in a standoff in a hail of bullets outside the home of J.P. Morgan.

I really enjoyed this. The stories in the novel are rich and add texture to early twentieth century history even though a lot of the story seems to be conjecture rather than fact. I have read a few other novels by Doctorow and will look forward to more!

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