So, when this one cropped up on sale, I figured I’d give it a shot. He seemed almost more famous for being famous than for any particular thing he’d written. Gore Vidal has long been a “name” whose work I didn’t really know. Love the overlapping characters, Vidal's mastery of irony, and 100+ hours of storytelling. UPDATE (Nov 2019): I've now listened to Lincoln, 1876, and Empire - and I'm about to begin Hollywood. After listening to (or reading) Gore Vidal's story of the Burr/Hamilton rivalry, Hamilton the Musical will likely seem more of a fantasy than ever. I have more than once begged Audible to add it, and while I don't think they did it for me (smile) I am delighted and grateful to see it here today! I see that Audible will launch the companion novel Lincoln in a few weeks - also read by Gardner, also wonderful. The walks continued, but the tapes stretched, the devices evolved, and when I joined Audible and eventually began listening with iPhone and Bluetooth I lost access to Grover Gardner's excellent rendition of this classic. I loved it so much that I purchased a (used) set of the tapes and listened to it numerous times over 10 years or so. That's how I first listened to this book. In those days you "rented" books on audiotape (or checked them out of the library) and played them on a Walkman (get it?) or similar device. I began listening to audiobooks in the late 1990s when i moved to the mountains, adopted two dogs, and took them on daily walks of several miles. With their broad canvas and sprawling cast of fictional and historical characters, these novels present a panorama of American politics and imperialism, as interpreted by one of our most incisive and ironic observers.įinally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
Together, they explore both Burr's past - and the continuing civic drama of their young nation.īurr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to post-World War II. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist named Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many.
In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. For listeners who can’t get enough of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, Gore Vidal’s stunning novel about Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel - and who served as a successful, if often feared, statesman of our fledgling nation.
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