Philly, 'Heyday,' and the ilk

Despite what my last name may hint to you, I had a very low-key St. Patrick's Day; took a long weekend and went to visit my family. They live pretty close to Philadelphia, so on Sunday morning we drove into the city and went to the Tutankhamun exhibit that's currently at the Franklin Institute. Good stuff. I would've liked to see more about the current work that's gone into analyzing the contents of the tomb and how our knowledge has changed over the years, but I suppose that really wasn't the point.

Last week I plowed through Kurt Andersen's Heyday, which a whole lot of mainstream publications have been paying a lot of attention to recently. I liked it. It was by no means perfect, and I can definitely see the perspective of the reviewers who thought that Andersen did a better job of recreating the historical background than in developing the characters and plot. It's true; were it not for the research behind Heyday, it'd be a mess. Some of the characters are indeed under-developed, and there are plot lines that disappear midway through the book into the background. More than a book, it's really a story about a set of characters traveling through a series of past events. Kind of like Gone With The Wind in the sense that experience and historical detail tends to trump plot, but Heyday places more value on the history.

That being said, I found it a great read. I'm a huge fan of Kevin Baker's "City of Fire" trilogy, and most of it essentially read as though it could have been the prequel -- right down to the same motif of immolation (SPOILER ALERT: one of the main characters is a serial arsonist who, Andersen "reveals," was responsible for a number of major real-life NYC fires). Midway through, however, Heyday turns into a road story. That's one of the drawbacks, in my opinion; Andersen really tried to have it both ways with regard to making it both a NYC-centric historical novel and a Twain-like travelogue. He pulls it off decently, but it did muddle the reading experience somewhat.

Nevertheless, I still prefer not to complain. It was flawed, sure, but it's my kind of book. I'm picky. It takes a lot to make a book the sort that keeps me up until 2 AM reading.