Vidal (one of the great minds of our age) is a master of historical fiction. This novel brings the early 19th century to life, and provides a sober yet amusing perspective on the famous and the modest alike.

Burr was not an especially nice person, but he had the charm that can ease a meglomaniac's way. Really this novel is worth studying if you're writing yourself, for Vidal's truly unique style and his unparalleled under-painting.

Another found, another to read again. At twenty-one, I would have been spellbound by the drama surrounding Burr, and romanticized the era, being Canadian. Now with greater background and considerably more years beneath me, Burr by Gore Vidal would be a much different experience.

Vidal is a master of his craft. This novel starts from the point of view of Charles Schuyler, a young law clerk working in an aged Aaron Burr's law office. His employer inexplicably invites him on a mysterious carriage ride which ends in Burr's wedding to a notorious rich widow. Charles, who prefers journalism to the law, writes an article about the wedding for a local newspaper--which gets rejected. But the editor, who is deep into New York and national politics, has an offer the penniless young man can't refuse: a lucrative contract to write an anonymous pamphlet accusing Martin Van Buren (current vice-president and future presidential candidate) of being Aaron Burr's illegitimate son and thus handing the presidency to likely contender Henry Clay. The author just has to come up with some "proof" which, in those times before DNA testing, was pretty thin. This sets up the story in which young Charles struggles with his conscience over hurting a man he admires and helping a man whose politics he abhors win an election.

Charles sets to work getting his evidence by interviewing Burr. Along the way, Burr decides to give Charles his notes for his own biography, so we have parallel stories: the end of Burr's life as seen from the eyes of Charles, and Burr's youth and political career in Burr's/Vidal's own words. Of course Burr has a totally different slant on the past events and characters than what we've been told in the history books. Washington was a dull man who never won a battle, Hamilton and Adams were monarchists, and Jefferson was the devil incarnate who did his best to enshrine slavery and states' rights (the supremacy of a state to nullify any federal law and ultimate secede if they chose) into the federal system. Vidal intersperses this colorful narrative with corrupt officials, political riots, a couple of murders and several affairs. In the background is the sneaking suspicion that our founding fathers were deeply flawed men and the early republic a fragile construction built on the evil compromise of slavery. The country could have easily broken apart at several times and in different configurations before the Civil War. Was the ugly moral compromise worth it? Vidal leaves it up to the reader to decide.

I knew little of Arron Burr before reading this novel: he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, fled to "the west" (of the Alleghenies), and beat a treason rap. I had forgotten he was vice-president during Jefferson's first term and didn't know he returned to an active political/social life in New York and lived to the ripe old age of eighty. I had thought he died in the west from the shame of killing one of our beloved founding fathers (Hamilton wasn't as beloved in his own time). I'll definitely want to check out some biographies on this interesting and complicated man.

Editorial Note: Even masters occasionally weave an error into the fabric of their creations, so the gods don't get jealous of perfection. Vidal's was an annoying tendency to describe Burr's desk as "baize-covered" in every single scene in which it is mentioned (which were MANY). A tiny flaw, but it jumped out at me.

Like a photorealist painter, Vidal captures the characters and period in rich, vivid detail. The reader shares his obvious delight in using facts to upend the whitewashed version of men whose attachment to the ideals of the American Revolution was “complicated”

Second reading, I read years ago. Vidal excellent writing is so evident, Burr gives you a real feel for the times and Vidals version of the Burrs unvarnished, view of the creators of the American Republic. I loved it again.

Recommended by my dad for years, I had taken his copy home but had not read it until now. I was prompted by a 2015 documentary about Vidal and finally read it.

The history of the revolution with this much military and tactical detail is a bit tough to slog through for me, but the writing is excellent. I love the characters being brought to life. Almost all were real people and even some of the conversations were historically accurate.

On top of seeing Hamilton and reading a few other works of early American historical fiction, I have learned a lot about a period of time that I never thought I was that interested in. So goes the power of books.

And holding this book that my dad had held and enjoyed made me happy. I'm sorry to be putting it back on the shelf. I wish he was here so we could discuss it, he probably read it 40 years ago but would have remembered it and had some great insight. That's the way he was.

I'm not very far into this dense work of fiction, but it's my first Vidal novel and I am FLOORED by his style. It's not at all what I expected. Five or ten years ago it would have sickened me to read it because his writing is so damn good, but I'm over my own artistic hangups now and can enjoy it.

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Done now. Although I got a tad bored at times (mainly due to my own ignorance of America's history), I cannot get over how much I loved this book. When I describe it to people who've never heard of Vidal's historical fiction series, aren't familiar with Vidal, or aren't familiar with Aaron Burr - nobody seemed to understand what I could like about this book. It sounds weird.

And it might be weird. But it's wonderful and timeless. America has changed little since Charlie was documenting Burr's life. Still politicians never admit to partisanship but are often accused of it. The same games are still being played. Vidal humanizes these worshiped heroes, and regardless how much is true, it's a step American must take to "win the future."

This is the first of Vidal's Narratives of Empire (though the second one he wrote in the series) and is the most enjoyable and scurrilous of all (though I've not yet read the follow-up 1876). Aaron Burr was a war hero, a Vice-President, and, infamously, killed Hamilton in a duel. He is here presented as an irresistible rogue, a gambler, brilliant lawyer, ladies man, and military genius, who was tried for treason for allegedly wanting to split off the Western states from the Union. All this is but a smoke screen for Vidal's exquisite skewering of American historical pieties about the founding of their country, and, in particular, of the reputation of Great Men such as Washington (a useless general, who lost every battle, here) and Jefferson (a pedantic tyrant, here, who fabricated a case against Burr). As in the later novels, the shadow of imperial ambition hangs over the book, and here it is Jefferson who is the main driver of this, with his wish to annex Mexico and Canada. Hugely entertaining and beautifully written, this is a brilliant piece of writing, and may even be educational.

Wow! Missed a train stop and a couple hours of sleep due to this book. Sometimes got a bit lost in the whirl of Republicans, Whigs, and Federalists, but Vidal is simply fantastic. The descriptions of the Revolutionary War and wilderness-encircled Washington were especially good. Both Charlie Schuyler and Aaron Burr came to life in profoundly different ways.

So boring it puts me to sleep every time I try to read it. I’m done.

This is a very dense book that I think is better appreciated the more the reader already knows about the events and the people. In my opinion, it reflects very highly on Vidal, a man both clever and intelligent. And although 400 pages of relatively dense writing can seem like a lot, let me just say that it is worth reading to the end.

8.25/10
Certainly a different view of the early history of the US than the one I learned years ago in school. Lengthy, detailed, readable, entertaining, disturbing, and, in some ways, a little too close to current political reality.