vdt book

Eighteen-forty-eight, author Kurt Andersen argued last year in a national weekly news magazine, was the year that modern America came to be. From culture to inventions to the Gold Rush boosting the populations of California after the victories of the Mexican war, America was on the move in 1848. It was a compelling argument meant to enlighten as much as promote Andersen’s novel set in 1848, an era which he refers to in the book’s title as a national “Heyday.”

This novel makes Andersen’s case for 1848 in eloquent prose set on a frame of suspense and love. “Heyday” is populated by an intriguing cast: The Brit aristocrat who wants the American experience and discovers that he loves … the beautiful part-time prostitute with dreams of acting who is the sister of … the troubled, young war deserter who believes himself an instrument of the Lord’s vengeance and friend of … the reprobate, philosophical newspaperman who seeks a deeper meaning to life, a greatness, that he has not found writing two-bit copy; they are chased by a former French military man seeking vengeance on the Brit.

This book moves from France to England to the bustling grit of New York to the wide-open American spaces to the gold fever of a flowering San Francisco. Along the way, the principal characters deal with a supporting cast that seems straight from “Gangs of New York,” as well as French revolutionaries, self-made British upper crust, religious cults of the American Midwest, and the prospectors and speculators of the gold rush. There are also cameos from such famed figures as Charles Darwin, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln’s law partner, etc. Readers familiar with Andersen’s 1848 argument can’t help but see the pieces coalesce in “Heyday” to create the framework for the America we live in today.

This is a sprawling epic of a novel. It is slow on occasion.

Andersen sometimes becomes too enamored with providing evidence for his 1848 argument with far too many details on various contraptions and methods of the era.

There are times when readers may question whether or not they actually care for the main characters. Yet, “Heyday” is a fascinating peek into another time, specifically 1848, the year when America became America.