Burr: A Novel

1973, 1980 Bantam edition
Gore Vidal
Burr: A Novel
Original price $3.50, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback with loose pages
B

Just a few days after I reviewed Sex, Death, and Money, Gore himself got to experience the middle taboo.  If there's an afterlife, which he doubted, he'd probably be amused that he's still a very controversial figure.  People speak ill of the dead in his case.  But then, as this novel proves again and again, so did he.

His title character is controversial Aaron Burr, although the story is not entirely from Burr's perspective.  Burr's young protégé, Charles Schuyler, is helping Burr write his memoirs, while also secretly trying to gather proof that Burr is Martin Van Buren's real father, in order to defeat Van Buren in the 1836 election.  Along the way, motives change, and ironically Burr turns out to be Charlie's father, too.

The twist ending is better than in Julian or Washington, D.C., since it actually affects the whole story.  I also found the layering of narratives handled more skillfully than in Julian, almost a decade earlier.  The characters are of course more developed than in Washington. 

Not that the novel is entirely faultless.  On the petty scale, there are a shocking number of typos.  And on the grander scale, while the characters are believable in the sense of consistent, it is a bit much that all of Burr's enemies are so vile or cloddish, even allowing for the protagonist's bias.  (I'd attribute the iconoclasm to this being the time of Watergate revelations, but Vidal has always been this cynical.)

Also, Vidal doesn't resolve the mystery of Theodosia, Burr's daughter.  Was she just his best friend and confidante or were they incestuously involved?  The rumor is brought up and then dropped, as an excuse for the infamous duel with Hamilton.  Not that Schuyler or Vidal has to untangle all the complexities of Burr, but if you're going to examine how many bastards he had and whether he really wanted to conquer Mexico, why introduce the controversy and not have some resolution, even if it's just "We can't be sure"?

As for how this novel relates to Washington, D.C. in the Narratives of Empire series, I think Vidal still hadn't yet seen them as connected.  But when we get to 1876 in 1976, I'll talk about how that novel is a link between them.