Full name: Welcome to Hard Times: A Novel

Author: E. L. Doctorow Year: 1960 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction, Western, Historical fiction Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Barns&Noble Amazon eBooks.com LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780452275713 9780812978223 0452275717 0812978226

Hard Times is the name of a town in the barren hills of the Dakota Territory. To this town there comes one day one of the reckless sociopaths who wander the West to kill and rape and pillage. By the time he is through and has ridden off, Hard Times is a smoking ruin. The de facto mayor, Blue, takes in two survivors of the carnage-a boy, Jimmy, and a prostitute, Molly, who has suffered unspeakably-and makes them his provisional family. Blue begins to rebuild Hard Times, welcoming new settlers, while Molly waits with vengeance in her heart for the return of the outlaw. Here is E. L. Doctorow's debut novel, a searing allegory of frontier life that sets the stage for his subsequent classics. Similar books: Ghost Town by Robert Coover The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan The Day of the Beast by Zane Grey The Old Neighborhood by Avery Corman The Heart Broke In by James Meek Traveling Sprinkler by Nicholson Baker A Cannibal in Manhattan by Tama Janowitz A Summer Bird-Cage by Margaret Drabble Neighbors by Thomas Berger The Wapshot Scandal by John Cheever At Freddie's by Penelope Fitzgerald Success by Martin Amis Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins Far Tortuga by Peter Matthiessen Visitors by Anita Brookner The Hardest Ride by Gordon L. Rottman Paradise Sky by Joe R. Lansdale Hanta Yo by Ruth Beebe Hill Valdez Is Coming by Elmore Leonard Comstock Lode by Louis L'Amour