SOURCE: "Bad Man from Bodie," in New York Times Book Review, September 25, 1960, p. 51.

In the following review, Williams outlines the conflict and theme of Welcome to Hard Times.

"Once again, the legend of the Old West has been rescued for a serious literary purpose," say the publishers of this first novel by a philosophy major. Inevitably, they invoke The Ox-Bow Incident—a practice followed by many reviewers, who seldom fail to pronounce the work at hand the first serious fiction about the West since—well, almost always since The Ox-Bow Incident (e.g.: The Authentic Death of Dendry Janes, Carrington, A Distant Trumpet, Warlock). It is time to acknowledge that the "serious Western" has established itself firmly on a sub-genre of fiction. Welcome to Hard Times is an exfoliation on a quite sturdy branch.

Thematically, E. L. Doctorow's short novel is concerned with one of the favorite problems...