If I hear the truth spoken by an elected official or his representative, I wonder if he has had no inducement to lie. We have undergone Watergate and Irangate we have seen a president resign from office under fire and a daydreaming movie star occupy the White House. But since that time the bottom has fallen out of my old world. I remember waxing a bit hot under the collar, reading Burr, at what I considered a travesty of the character of my hero, Thomas Jefferson. Many years ago, although an avid reader of his novels, I was uneasy in some parts of that world. “President Harding-of course I know exactly who he is-will be murdered.” I see something far more terrible than mere death.” Madame Marcia discarded her toothpick like an empress letting go her sceptre. In answer to the question: “He’ll die?” she replies: Madame Marcia duly foresees the presidency in the stars and rampant lion of the horoscope.

Only Harding’s hour and date of birth have been supplied to the functioning sorceress, but since she has instant access to the Congressional Directory, a glance could allow her to match the date to the man. Daugherty believes that his candidate will be nominated and elected, and he expects that Madame Marcia, who is consulted by the greatest in the land, will predict this, and that her prediction will be a good way of preparing the Duchess for her future role. The visit has been arranged by Harding’s henchman, Harry Daugherty, who is pushing him for the Republican nomination in 1920. Harding is affectionately known, visits the Washington salon of the astrologist Madame Marcia to read her husband’s horoscope. 'Vidal can take history and make it powerful and astonishing.' Time concurred: 'Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past.In the beginning of Gore Vidal’s new novel, Hollywood, the “Duchess,” as the consort of Ohio senator Warren G. 'A glorious piece of writing,' said Jimmy Breslin in Harper's. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire.

The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. The third volume of Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year.Ĭharles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile.

Charles schermerhorn schuyler