New copy - delivered FREE to any NZ address in 7-9 business days

With the centennial year of the United States as the target of this historical novel- Gore Vidal again mounts a glorious expedition into that grimy and intricate activity called politics. And this is politics as it ought to be: gossip- corruption- money- dinner parties- more corruption- and all the tacky panoply of power. Into the rarefied atmosphere of a world where money has begun to talk very loudly ? usually through the mouths of people called Astor ? step Charles Schuyler and his daughter Emma. Charlie is the unacknowledged bastard son of Aaron Burr; Emma is rather beautiful; and both think it is prudent to return from penury in Europe and secure a fortuitous marriage for Emma. But America is no longer a young republic; its a fledgling international superpower with its attendant seedy administration- dubious election campaigns- snobbery- popped corn- speaking tubes and perpendicular railways (lifts). Its a world that will welcome into its social and political bosom these two attractive exotics with the right names. And its a world whose every political peccadillo- social slip-up and irresistible intrigue is recorded in this- the journal of Charlie Schuyler....