New York - March 06, 2007

Crowd Control

“Heyday,” by Kurt Andersen

Running with a bad crowd always leads to adventure.

Just think of what happened when Tony danced with the Jets, Cady hung with the Plastics, and Stacey joined the Baby-sitters Club.

Fall in with the disreputable clique in Heyday, the highly anticipated 19th-century epic by Kurt Andersen. Follow Englishman Benjamin Knowles as he arrives in New York and meets three boisterous Americans: Skaggs (a journalist), Polly (a prostitute — ahem — actress), and Polly’s brother, Duff (a troubled war vet).

After a misunderstanding damages Ben and Polly’s relationship, the girl jets west, and the three men hightail it after her in search of love, adventure, and California gold. All the while they’re secretly trailed by a murderer looking for revenge.

From locomotives and manifest destiny to Darwin and the Gold Rush, America’s coming of age serves as a backdrop for the transatlantic journey. Advances in technology, an obsession with money, and floods of booze foreshadow a familiar future.

It’s mischievous. It’s enthralling. And, of course, it’s a total crowd-pleaser.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.