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:
“If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)