Though more than three decades have passed since the publication of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime and tons of paper have been used for admiring reviews and substantial critical response, the book has lost nothing of its initial appeal thanks to the carefully constructed artistry and masterly precision. It was described by critics as having

and as being “a bag of riches, totally lucid and accessible, full of surprises, epiphanies, little time bombs that alter one's view on things and enormous fun to read” (Fremont-Smith 1975: 41). Its colourful mosaic of themes, shifting narration, repetitions, circularity, illusions of demystification and idiosyncratic blending of facts and fiction, as well as the syncopated rhythm of ragtime imitate the inexhaustible energy, but also the complexities and paradoxes of America in the 1900s.

Ragtime recounts three main stories interwoven with each other. Three main stories of people who could not have been more different from one another. An upper-middle class WASP family, consisting of the characters simply named “Father,” “Mother,” “Mother's Younger Brother” and the “Little Boy”; an immigrant Jewish family of “Tateh,” “Mameh” and the “Little Girl,” who is at one point referred to as “Sha;” and a black family of Coalhouse Walker, the ragtime musician, his fiance Sarah, and their baby son, Coalhouse Walker III.