Doctorow probes the human side of a savage war in `The March'.

Publication: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Byline: Chauncey Mabe

"The March" by E.L. Doctorow; Random House ($29.95)

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More than any contemporary writer, E.L. Doctorow keeps alive the historical novel as a mode of serious literary expression. While many novelists make the occasional foray into historical fiction _ Philip Roth, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates among them _ Doctorow returns to it again and again. The other writers of prominence, outside the genres, of course, who have consistently plowed the fields of history, Gore Vidal and Larry McMurtry, can also be read with pleasure, although it must be said that the characters in Vidal's novels sooner or later all start to sound like Gore Vidal, while McMurtry, a master at conveying the tone of bygone times, does not approach Doctorow as a careful stylist.

Doctorow's output...

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