In The Context of The Author's Other Works
The novel was less successful than Doctorow' books Billy Bathgate and Ragtime, which were also filmed. But it shares with them the alliance between history and fiction. Some characters appear in other works of the author, for example Dr Sartorius in The March. Doctorow's father loved Edgar Allan Poe and named his first son after him; Doctorow told a journalist that Waterworks was written in Poe's honour. Already in 1984 Doctorow has written a story about the Croton Aqueduct with the title Waterworks (in the collection Lives of the Poets). This is the story of McIlvaine, who watched the child who drowned in the reservoir.
Read more about this topic: The Waterworks
Famous quotes containing the words context, author and/or works:
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has....”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“It’s an old trick now, God knows, but it works every time. At the very moment women start to expand their place in the world, scientific studies deliver compelling reasons for them to stay home.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)