They block his route so he is unable to drive awayf. One afternoon on his route, a group of firemen harass him.

Coalhouse has a treasured Model T Ford automobile and drives it from the New York suburbs into the city for his job as a ragtime pianist. Sarah eventually warms to Coalhouse and goes to live with him as his fiancée. While Sarah refuses to see him, Coalhouse strikes up a friendship with the rest of the family through his routine visits. Soon after, a wealthy Black man named Coalhouse Walker, Jr., who is the father of the baby, begins calling on Sarah. Instead of turning her over to the authorities, Mother houses Sarah, to the chagrin of Father. One day, Mother discovers an abandoned Black infant in her yard, the child of a local woman named Sarah. He becomes impassioned by Leftist rhetoric, believing he has found the direction his life has lacked. He, too, is drawn into Emma Goldman’s circle. After Mother’s Younger Brother is discovered following Evelyn, she begins to date him. Evelyn, meanwhile, becomes enraptured by Emma Goldman. He and his daughter move to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Tateh is disgusted by the lecture and abandons Evelyn and the city altogether, believing New York only leads to ruin. She attends the speech of prominent anarchist Emma Goldman, who lectures New York’s socialists and anarchists on the oppressive nature of marriage. Nesbit becomes drawn into their world and spends every day with them, including attending Tateh’s Leftist meetings. Evelyn Nesbit wanders New York after a day in court and meets an artist named Tateh and his beautiful daughter. He believes his best days are behind him. When he returns, he notices a stark difference in his physical and mental states. Houdini, fascinated by Father’s ventures, becomes consumed with building his own legacy and pushes himself to invent increasingly extreme illusions that shock his audiences.įather goes on the Arctic expedition with Robert Peary to discover the North Pole. They welcome Houdini into their home, where Father brags that he will be traveling to the North Pole in a few days. One day, the famous magician Harry Houdini crashes his car outside of the family’s New Rochelle house as he tours the area for property. Thaw, is in the midst of a murder trial after killing Nesbit’s lover, Stanford White. Lost and aimless, Mother’s Younger Brother obsesses over the infamous muse, Evelyn Nesbit. Mother’s Younger Brother is a dispassionate employee in Father’s company.

The company makes the family a comfortable member of the upper class. Father owns a company that manufactures and sells patriotic goods such as American flags and firecrackers. The character “Father” builds a house which his home with Mother, their son (referred to as “the boy”), Grandfather, and Mother’s Younger Brother. Ragtime opens in 1902 in New Rochelle, New York.

Ragtime novel