His interviews with leading politicians convey an enormous amount of information, but it's a clunky method of exposition that risks turning the novel into a series of lectures. Timothy Farrell is set to start a new film about America's reaction to the European conflict. 'The interventionists were nervously aware that 80 percent of the country was unwaveringly isolationist.' The country swarms with British agents trying to enlist help for their impoverished fight against Hitler. The novel opens in the hard-to-imagine days of America's isolation from the war in Europe. Instead of 'You Are There,' we get 'You Are Very Close.' These are well-placed observers, but telling the story through them means that we spend most of the book listening to them ask important people what's happening. Caroline's nephew, Peter Sanford, publishes a sophisticated journal that gives him access to politicians, critics, and writers (including young Gore Vidal at a party of literati).

Her former lover, Timothy Farrell, is a documentary filmmaker. Caroline Sanford, founder of the Washington Tribune, is an intimate friend of the Roosevelts. It's not that his central characters don't have the inside view of mid-20th century America. Those expecting the historical novel to take them into the flame of power will find here mostly the aroma of smoke. Unfortunately, with 'The Golden Age,' the series ends not with a bang, but a whimper. Millions of readers have learned more from 'Burr,' 'Lincoln,' '1876,' 'Empire,' 'Hollywood,' and 'Washington, D.C.' than from their high school history classes. Over the past three decades, Gore Vidal has written the most renowned series of historical novels about the United States.

Gore vidal american chronicle series