I really hated the first half of this book, but Doctorow tied together what seemed like disparate strands in such a fashion as to make the book not a horrible one. His attempt to make the book flow like a storyteller's tale by eschewing quotation marks for dialogue is quite annoying.
To a degree, he does capture the mood of the New York area during the early part of last century by employing real, famous people as characters, but his main achievement here is the character of Coalhouse Walker Jr., a black musician who does not bow to a very real injustice.
Not really recommended, but, as I said, not horrible. Three stars out of five.
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