A Novelist Finds New Stories in American History

First, novelist E.L. Doctorow reads from his novel, "Billy Bathgate." (First broadcast March 14, 1989) Then, film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Billy Bathgate," the film adaptation of E. L. Doctorow's best-selling novel. It stars Dustin Hoffman and Bruce Willis.

The author's books follow the lives of fictional characters in real historical situations. Several of them have been made into films. Doctorow's newest novel, Billy Bathgate, takes place in the criminal underworld of early-twentieth-century New York City.

Roth, who has been writing novels for more than a half-century, explains how he comes up with his ideas — and why he continues to write every day. In his latest work, Nemesis, he imagines a fictional polio outbreak set in his hometown of Newark, N.J., during the 1940s.