Empire - Number 4 in series (Paperback, New edition)

With this fourth and most effervescent entry into his American Chronicle (Burr, 1876, Lincoln), Vidal has concocted a fine champagne of historical fiction that plucks a lush heroine off the Krantz/Sheldon/Steel vine - a brainy beauty who angles her way to the pinnacle of newspaperdom - and bottles her in the glittering world of imperial America, vintage 1900. A brood of real-lifers tromp around heroine Caroline Sanford in this snob's epic, linking her charmed life with that of the nation at large. As the novel begins over a silver-service dinner in London, well-born Caroline shyly trades ripostes with expatriate author Henry James, US Ambassador to Britain John Hay, and Henry Adams of the Adamses. These three eiders form a kind of Greek chorus whose sage observations periodically punctuate the narrative, providing moral counterweight to the heady world of money and power into which Caroline - and Vidal - plunge. At the center of this world are two ambitious men, two superb characters - legendary newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Teddy Roosevelt - both avid supporters of the American Empire, whose reach into Cuba, the Philippines, and Panama constitutes the backdrop against which Vidal daubs his heroine's life. Caroline's tie to Hearst comes via her half-brother Blaise, who dupes her out of her share of their inheritance in order to invest the monies in Hearstian ventures. Riled, Caroline rounds up cash to buy a paper of her own, the flagging Washington Tribune, with which she out-sensationalizes Hearst - who's here depicted as an amoral swine. Surfing a tide of yellow ink to Olympian heights, she lunches with Astors and Vanderbilts, and makes pals with Alice Roosevelt and her dad Teddy, a human dynamo who steals every scene he's in. Along the way, she gets engaged (but her fiance takes a tumble and dies); gets married (but not to the man she loves); and takes a lover (by whom she has a son). By novel's end, she's rich and happy, and America seems to be too; but as Vidal offers through Hearst's mouth in the last bit of dialogue, "True history. . .is the final fiction." This lightest of Vidal's historicals is intelligent, sophisticated entertainment, a giddy amalgam of fact and imagination that, while short on profundity, dazzles. (Kirkus Reviews)

Here is the story of arguably America’s finest hour; of the time when the twentieth century dawned, Queen Victoria died, and America, basking deliciously in excess wealth, rather thought it might snap up an empire of its own. Yet while politicians muse over the potential of China or the Philippines – even Russia – empires are being built at home; railway empires; industrial empires; newspaper empires. Into this arena float the delectable Caroline Sanford, putative heiress and definite catch. Caroline is an oddity; she has been raised in France where they teach rich girls to talk and think. American society women, required only to think of themselves as the most interesting beings on earth, are rather alarmed. American men are amused – until Caroline shirks from marriage, sues her brother, buys a newspaper, and becomes that even greater oddity – a powerful woman. Mingling with the movers and shakers of the day – with President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolf Hearst, Henry James, the Astors, Vanderbilts and Whitneys – Caroline Sanford echoes the glorious passage of the United States as it sweeps into a new century, reaching boldly for the world.
 

General

Imprint:	Abacus
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Narratives of empire
Release date:	April 1994
Authors:	Gore Vidal
Dimensions:	196 x 131 x 37mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	576
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-0-349-10528-4
Categories:	Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Historical fiction Promotions
LSN:	0-349-10528-6
Barcode:	9780349105284

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