The Book of Daniel: A Novel
- ISBN-10
- 081297817X
- ISBN-13
- 9780812978179
- Series
- The Book of Daniel
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 320
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2007-07-10
- Publisher
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Author
- E.L. Doctorow
Description
The central figure of this novel is a young man whose parents were executed for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for Russia. His name is Daniel Isaacson, and as the story opens, his parents have been dead for many years. He has had a long time to adjust to their deaths. He has not adjusted. Out of the shambles of his childhood, he has constructed a new life—marriage to an adoring girl who gives him a son of his own, and a career in scholarship. It is a life that enrages him. In the silence of the library at Columbia University, where he is supposedly writing a Ph.D. dissertation, Daniel composes something quite different. It is a confession of his most intimate relationships—with his wife, his foster parents, and his kid sister Susan, whose own radicalism so reproaches him. It is a book of memories: riding a bus with his parents to the ill-fated Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill; watching the FBI take his father away; appearing with Susan at rallies protesting their parents’ innocence; visiting his mother and father in the Death House. It is a book of investigation: transcribing Daniel’s interviews with people who knew his parents, or who knew about them; and logging his strange researches and discoveries in the library stacks. It is a book of judgments of everyone involved in the case—lawyers, police, informers, friends, and the Isaacson family itself. It is a book rich in characters, from elderly grand- mothers of immigrant culture, to covert radicals of the McCarthy era, to hippie marchers on the Pen-tagon. It is a book that spans the quarter-century of American life since World War II. It is a book about the nature of Left politics in this country—its sacrificial rites, its peculiar cruelties, its humility, its bitterness. It is a book about some of the beautiful and terrible feelings of childhood. It is about the nature of guilt and innocence, and about the relations of people to nations. It is The Book of Daniel.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Holy Bible (NIV)
By , Various AuthorsThe NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978.
-
The Book of Daniel
By Raymond HammerThe New English Bible translation of the Book of Daniel, with an introduction and commentaries.
-
The Book of Daniel: A Novel
By E.L. DoctorowThe central figure of this novel is a young man whose parents were executed for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for Russia. His name is Daniel Isaacson, and as the story opens, his parents have been dead for many years.
-
The Book of Daniel
The Anchor Bible series offers new, book-by-book translations of the Old and New Testament and the Apocrypha, with commentary. This volume on the Book of Daniel has been prepared by...
-
The Book of Daniel: The Holy Bible, King James Version, Giant Print
By Anderson BiblesThe book of Daniel is a beautiful read.
-
Daniel in the Lions' Den
By Ronne RandallRonne Randall. - - - Books in this series : Noah ' s Ark :
-
The Book of Daniel (Illustrated)
By Clarence LarkinNaturally blessed with a readable and flowing style of writing, Larkin enlightened countless thousands of Christians during his lengthy career. In this book, we receive a passage-by-passage, line-by-line examination of the Book of Daniel.
-
Agents of Babylon: What the Prophecies of Daniel Tell Us about the End of Days
By David JeremiahIn his #1 New York Times bestseller Agents of the Apocalypse, noted prophecy expert Dr. David Jeremiah explored the book of Revelation through the lens of its major players.
-
The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives
By Society for Old Testament StudyEncapsulating as it does research that has been undertaken on the sociological, anthropological and political aspects of the history of ancient Israel, this important book is designed to follow in the tradition of works in the series ...
-
The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings
By A. S. van der WoudeEnthält: The text of the main lectures, of the seminar papers and of the large majority of the short papers read at the congress