A review by mendelbot
The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow

5.0

An outstanding piece of historical fiction. Angry, but passionately, righteously so. The book is an examination of two different leftist movements in the middle part of the 20th century, warts and all. It also explores the collateral damage of witch hunts, fear mongering, and state-sponsored propaganda. While the novel is about politics and is in its own way political, it is very even handed in its depiction of both the Communist left of the post-WWII years and the anti-war left of the 1960s. It never comes down explicitly for or against these movements (though the author's sympathies are pretty evident); rather it explores them for what they were: passionate, well-meaning, divisive, messy, and in many ways self-destructive. The prose can take some getting used to as the narration flips between first and third person quite often, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph. Inherently what makes this novel worth recommending - highly - is the passionate telling of the tale.