Welcome to Hard Times is the debut 1960 novel by American author E.L. Doctorow. It is about a small settlement in the Dakota Territory that is named Hard Times. After a reckless drifter comes into Hard Times and terrorizes the town with rape, murder and arson, the survivors lead an effort to rebuild. A major theme throughout the short novel is the relationship of the characters and evil, represented by their fear of the Bad Man from Bodie.
A review by the New York Times relates the book to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness:
Perhaps the primary theme of the novel is that evil can only be resisted psychically: when the rational controls that order man's existence slacken, destruction comes. Conrad said it best in "Heart of Darkness," but Mr. Doctorow has said it impressively. His book is taut and dramatic, exciting and successfully symbolic.
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or times:
“I don’t pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)