Born in the Bronx on January 6, 1931, Edgar Lawrence Doctorow's best-selling novels often focus on the American working class and dispossessed. The Book of Daniel (1971) concerned the Rosenberg spy case. Loon Lake (1980), World's Fair (1985) and Billy Bathgate (1989; film, 1991) examine the Great Depression and its aftermath. Doctorow's novel Ragtime (1975) was made into both a film (1981) and a musical (1998