Everything about Doctorow's career to date indicates that he considers the novel a vehicle for social and moral commentary as well as an art form which should stretch the author's resources to their limits. But success on the Ragtime scale in America almost automatically makes it more difficult for a writer to take himself seriously, partly because other, less successful writers begin to discount him….

This is not a metaphysical problem. It's one of the facts of life and writing in America today, and it's demoralized more than one good writer. Doctorow is not one to shirk it: You can almost hear the gritting of his teeth as he charges it head-on. It's no accident that Loon Lake has odd punctuation, excerpts of freeish verse written by one of the characters and passages jump-cut so that the reader has to figure out who's talking and what the time frame is. It's no accident, in other words, that Loon Lake would be regarded as "experimental" if it weren't by the author of Ragtime….

It's also no accident that one of the central motifs of Loon Lake is the fascination of success for those who aren't successful and the corrosive, dehumanizing effects of it on those who are. (p. 1)

There are many brilliant parts in Loon Lake: It's one verbally dazzling solo performance after another. The period detail is lovingly done, and the physical presence of both people and places is evocative and solid. I have a quibble about the loons, which are made to do things no loon I've been familiar with has ever done …, but apart from that I willingly suspended disbelief. Until the end of the book, that is. The publisher's blurb says that the ending "resolves the mystery of Joe's life and snaps the earlier sequences into perfect, inevitable order." Well, not quite. Doctorow's reach, just slightly exceeds his grasp. He's one of the most courageous and interesting writers around, and it's hard to imagine him writing anything lacking in courage and interest. But though his eye is on the big picture, the reader has to deal with the somewhat maddening sensation of scrabbling around for a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle lost down the back of the sofa. Loon Lake anatomizes America with insight, passion and inventiveness, but it leaves us with a small nagging doubt as to whether it really is more than the sum of its parts. (p. 2)