Celebrated American novelist, the late E.L. Doctorow and I met on a tennis court in Sag Harbor, NY in the mid-1990s and became a doubles team for a while--he the tall terror at the net and I the whirling dervish covering the rest of the court. One of my great thrills was occasionally being included in his long-running weekly men’s doubles game with the late writer Peter Matthiessen and one of several other celebrated writers, playing on Peter’s court in nearby Sagaponack, another gorgeous Hamptons village. These men were great players but much older than I, so I was included not for my riveting repartee (they provided plenty) but for my spry legs and forehand crosscourt.

Doctorow was an early supporter of my idea for Jazz Inspired and generously agreed to be in my initial group of thirteen interviewees.

I spoke with E.L. Doctorow in 2000, shortly after the publication of his novel City of God in his home in Sag Harbor.