Ragtime: A Novel (Modern Library 100 Best Novels)

First published in 1975, Ragtime is set between the turn of the century and the First World War. The novel opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. When the famous escape artist Harry Houdini crashes his car into a telephone pole outside their house, the boundary between fantasy and historical fact blurs. Historical figures including Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata appear alongside Doctorow's fictional characters—an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem among them. The ragtime musician's pursuit of justice leads him toward revolutionary violence. The novel weaves together real and imaginary characters in a single narrative. It was selected by the Modern Library and The Guardian as one of the 100 best novels of all time and inspired a Tony Award–winning musical.