The novel was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1975, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1976.[4]
The 1991 Fredric Jameson book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism considers Doctorow's Ragtime to illustrate the crisis of historiography and a resistance to interpretation.[5]
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The Question and Answer section for Ragtime is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
Ragtime covers the years from 1900 to 1917.
From the text:
He read the newspaper daily and was currently following the dispute between the professional baseballers and a scientist who claimed that the curve ball was an optical illusion.
Little Boy is the narrator of the story. Age unknown and purpose of composing the story unknown…until nearly the very end. Mostly an objective observer of events, but his interpretation of those events reflects a maturing consciousness.
