EL Doctorow: 'I don't have a style, but the books do'

EL Doctorow: 'I found myself writing this line: I'm Homer, the blind brother – I had the voice; I was off.'

The author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel and Homer and Langley talks to Sarah Crown.

On a quiet Harlem backstreet at the end of a row of stately brownstones is a grassed-over sliver of land, home to a handful of plane trees, a couple of flowertubs and a garden bench or two. A sign on the railings gives its name as the Collyer Brothers Park. It stands on the lot of what was once the home ...