Vanity Fair: "Manic energy, fanatical research, and a wicked sense of humor. Enthralling. A joyful, wild gallop through a joyful, wild time to be an American. "

Heyday by Kurt Andersen

"In this utterly engaging novel, the author of Turn of the Century brings 19th-century America vividly to life, but first he takes us to revolutionary Paris. There, as a bystander, young English gentleman Benjamin Knowles inadvertently causes the death of a policeman. The policeman's enraged older brother swears vengeance and follows Ben to England. But Ben has already given in to a childhood dream and headed to America, where he is charmed by the boisterous young republic. He's also charmed by Polly Lucking, an actress and prostitute he spots across a crowded room, and he meets her after he's fallen in with a radical, wise-cracking journalist named Skaggs. Polly's brother, Duff, is a troubled veteran of the campaign against Mexico—a good Catholic boy, he ended up fighting on the other side—and a stealthy arsonist. Ben and Polly fall in love, but after a misunderstanding Polly heads west with her protégé, Priscilla, and the three men track her down—all the way to Gold Rush California. Meanwhile, Ben's would-be assassin tiptoes behind. While this is a long book, it moves quickly, with historical detail that's involving but never a drag on the action; the characters are beautifully drawn."

~ Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.