With news of the death of literary legend E.L. Doctorow, who died Tuesday of complications from lung cancer at 84, fellow authors, fans and those he inspired took to social media to mourn his loss and sing his praises.
Best known for such works of historical fiction as "Ragtime," "The Book of Daniel" and "Billy Bathgate," Doctorow was, as The Times' David Ulin points out, "perhaps the most American novelist of his generation. More than Philip Roth or John Updike, more even than Norman Mailer, Doctorow created fiction that existed at the intersection of American myth and hypocrisy.