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The seventh and last of Gore Vidal's Novels of Empire, one of the oddest and most original series in the history of American Literature. The Golden Age
brings us into the Age of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman-and Gore Vidal, all of whom make appearances in this abundantly peopled novel. History buffs will enjoy the author's frequently idiosyncratic interpretations and his backroom dish; indeed, few novelists have ever passed inside the beltway gossip as assiduously as the adroit.
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Our Review
The Biographer of Empire
Gore Vidal published his first novel at the tender age of 19 and immediately set off on a career as a man of letters, declining to enter a life in politics through a door held wide open for him by his extensive family connections. But as a novelist, his foremost concern has always been with politics and the gradual unfolding of the American empire. The Golden Age is the seventh of his "novels of empire," which trace this unfolding with the wit, candor, and insight that only an insider can bring. In this latest installment, we are led masterfully from the outbreak of the Second World War through the Korean War and the beginning of the U.S.-Soviet arms race. But rather than using a historical setting as the backdrop for a timeless examination of the human condition (as is the case with many historical novels), Vidal tells real history against the backdrop of a novel and its characters.
The novel has two witnesses through whose lives this midcentury history is told: Caroline Sanford, a Hollywood actress turned Washington newspaper publisher, and her nephew, Peter Sanford, a journalist who launches a leftist intellectual journal following World War II. Caroline's are the eyes and ears of the first section of the novel, which ends with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war against Japan. Vidal devotes much of this section to the Machiavellian intrigues that propelled the United States into the war, chief among them the assertion that the Japanese attack was carefully orchestrated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide an excuse for overcoming widespread isolationist sentiment.
The novel's second section, which traces the rise of the arms race and the new intelligentsia forming in its wake, is told largely through the eyes of Peter, whose journal, The American Idea, comes under fire from the House Un-American Activities Committee. Caroline, a silent-film star and newspaper publisher in the time of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, never really makes it into the postwar world, and her death in the midst of a conversation with Peter about the new power of television comes as no surprise. But Peter's metamorphosis into a late-century gray eminence is a neat trick that allows Vidal to write a final scene in which he himself discusses with one of his characters the world-historical significance of the events portrayed in the novel.
The Golden Age is many things: a memoir of sorts, an insightful portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a well-constructed case for the theory that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was deliberately provoked, a tell-all, an epic, a eulogy. But in all of this multifaceted splendor, it also happily remains an excellent novel from one of the finest writers of "the American century."
--Jacob Silverstein lives in Marfa, Texas.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Vidal's latest historical novel, which focuses on the FDR, McCarthy and Korean War periods, is like a gathering of Washington, Hollywood and New York gossip columnists--all of whom are Vidal personae arguing American politics and culture among themselves. Vidal even turns up as a character from time to time to remind us of his own role in 20th-century art and artifice. Raised in the house of his grandfather, Oklahoma senator Thomas P. Gore, Vidal did in fact know many of the top players in the midcentury American game; thus the novel's details of unromantic affairs, political shenanigans and history-shaping manipulations are rendered believable. Narrator Walker is wonderful. She has a deep, sexy, expressive voice reminiscent of Lauren Bacall, at turns amused, ironic, sardonic, sometimes even serious. At the end, Vidal himself narrates, waxing philosophical on the end of the century and his life during that time. Because this four-tape abridgement of a 720-page book often leaps across chronology, it sometimes takes a minute for listeners to orient themselves, but it's worth the effort. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, July 24). (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
This concluding volume to Vidal's history of the American "empire" covers the period from 1939 to the end of the Korean War, with a brief coda set in the present and Vidal himself serving as the narrator. At the cusp of World War II, Roosevelt is plotting his own reelection to an unprecedented third term and looking for a way to insure popular support for American involvement in the fight against Hilter. Once again, a descendant of Aaron Burr finds himself at the center of the political, social, and, to a lesser extent, cultural whirl. With the right family connections to gain him entry into the portals of power and the literary abilities that allow him to found a successful magazine of commentary, Peter Sanford cynically observes as F.D.R. maneuvers us into war and as Truman the haberdasher digs in against the "Communist menace." The novel is replete with a lively cast of both real and imagined characters and exhibits the typical Vidal wit and erudition. As were the earlier volumes in this series (e.g., Lincoln, 1876), this is likely to be very popular with a library audience. Essential for all public and academic libraries collecting Vidal's work. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/00.]--David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
Regina Marler
Rich in dialogue and mirthless humor, The Golden Age is the hard slap sentimentalists of the war have ahd coming, and a worthy conclusion to one of the finest sustained historical visions in American literature.
New York Observer
Emily Drabinski
As usual for Vidal, it's absorbing work, and when he strolls into history as a precocious young author spilling clever repartee at a Guggenheim cocktail hour, you find yourself welcoming his presence.
Out Magazine
Kirkus Reviews
Though its narrative temperature remains dangerously low, entertainment value is dependably high in this seventh and last of Vidal's delectable Novels of Empire.
From the Publisher
"[A] true magnum opus."
The New York Times
"A smart, witty Washington novel... You'll be gripped to the edge of your Chesterfield... Long live Gore Vidal."
Chicago Sun-Times
"Rich in dialogue and mirthless humor, The Golden Age is... a worthy conclusion to one of the finest sustained historical visions in American literature."
The New York Observer