This book has our name on it, as it is written by Spy Magazine co-founder, Andersen, whose previous novel, Turn of the Century, was thoroughly enjoyable -- and, more importantly, Heyday is set in the USA of the pivotal year 1848, where so much was happening that determined what was to come (for better and for worse) that we can't wait to see what Andersen has to say about how it all fits together.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx -- to name but a few -- were producing work that was opening the way to the future as Edgar Allen Poe (a quote from whose last work, Eureka -- completed in 1848, shortly before his death -- was chosen for one of the book's two opening epigraphs) was laying to rest the past.  And then there's the war with Mexico (remember the Alamo?) and the gold rush of '49.  Money, power, personalities and ideas swirl, back in the day -- the heyday, that is.