Heyday

Heyday, Kurt Andersen, Random House, 2007. Genre: Historical Fiction. 620 pages. Finished 5/20/2010.

LesOpinion: The Library Quest is beset with a theme, Gentle Reader: this is the 3rd book in 22 (that's nearly 14% for those of you trying to do the math in your head) that has set at least part of its story in gold rush-era San Francisco.

In Heyday, Andersen goes to great lengths to bring 1840's London, Paris, New York, middle America, and California to life. From fashion to vernacular, from science to revolution, this is a meticulous look at popular culture through the eyes of four young Americans and Britons setting out for the frontier in search of a utopian society...or gold...or both. Along with the war, politics, sleaze, and adventures, Andersen throws in casual encounters with celebrities from Darwin to de Tocqueville without making any of it feel contrived. It's a big, fat, fun, literate book that manages to be epic without containing a single enigmatic Chinaman.