E. L. Doctorow, in Ragtime, urges social justice in a more or less moving and persuasive way, but he is not concerned with true morality. After talk of policemen, evil capitalists, and strikebreakers, there is a scene in which the anarchist Emma Goldman gives a massage to the now naked, famous beauty Evelyn Nesbit, while a character known only as Mother's Younger Brother peeks from a closet. It's a scene filled, naturally, with prurient interest and filled, also, with a strong and convincing tirade on women's rights. Though Doctorow can speak feelingly of women's rights, taking a stand that is moral, he is not deeply involved in his characters' lives. Things do not happen in the world as Doctorow claims they do. Put off by fraudulence, the reader may incline to be suspicious of all the writer says, including what he says about women. (p. 29)

John Gardner, "Moral...