A wild ride through 1848's 'Heyday'

Andersen serves up a sprawling, messy, enthusiastic romp of a novel, à la Dumas.

from the March 27, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

Among New York's skyscrapers and working-class dandies, "Heyday" shines, but Andersen has to get his characters to California in time for the Gold Rush, so he manufactures a quarrel between Polly and Ben. Hurt, Polly takes off for the West with her protégée, an abused teenage prostitute named Priscilla Christmas who has endured some truly horrible events in her young life. (To Priscilla working in a brothel seems like a step up – compared to prior experience.) Ben follows Polly cross-country, Skaggs and Duff in tow, determined to win her back.

It's at this point that "Heyday" becomes a little less eager and a trifle less charming. The characters seem less alive outside Manhattan, even as the machinations of the plot become more apparent. Andersen crams in just about every notable person and event of 1848 – from Allen Pinkerton to the now-extinct Carolina Parakeet to the Donner Party. Ben is related by marriage to Alexis de Tocqueville, author of "Democracy in America," and went to school with Frederick Engels. Charles Darwin has a flatulent cameo; Walt Whitman fares rather better. Duff, Ben, and Skaggs encounter the beginnings of the women's rights movement in Seneca Falls, N.Y.; then swing by Illinois to visit a 19th-century experiment in communal living and give their regards to Congressman Lincoln.

Afterward, they head down to New Orleans to be appalled by slavery for a few pages before heading to California to find gold in them thar hills. A few characters detour out to Utah's Salt Lake, where the Mormons are building their city. One almost expects to hear Sally Field calling, "Run, Forrest! Run to San Francisco!"

Skaggs calls 1848 an "annus mirabilus" and Ben ultimately decides "that Skaggs had been exactly right about 1848. Even as it was occurring, it seemed like an account in a history book, bright and quick."

Only textbooks don't seem to have done it justice. In high school, I vaguely remember my teacher mentioning the Mexican-American War and Zachary Taylor as we rushed to the Civil War. Andersen is so knowledgeable that he can probably do a minute-by-minute timeline of the entire year, and so enthusiastic about his subject that readers will probably gladly sign up for the history lesson.

• Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor.

1 | Page 2