Scandalmonger: A Novel (Harvest Book) - Softcover

Safire, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156013231 ISBN 13: 9780156013239

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2001

Synopsis

The bestselling historical novel that exposes the less than honorable side of our Founding Fathers by the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist.

In this gripping and timely work, William Safire unveils the story behind the nation's first great political scandals. James Thomson Callender, the "scandalmonger" of the title, is an ambitious gossip-peddling editor secretly hired by Thomas Jefferson as a political weapon. After carefully damaging Alexander Hamilton's reputation, thereby paving the way for Jefferson's success, Callender is shunned by the very politicians on whose behalf he was jailed for sedition. Broke and betrayed, Callender seeks revenge by exposing an illicit affair between Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings, an accusation that ultimately cost Callender his career and would not be authenticated for two centuries.

By using actual letters, records, and notes to re-create dialogue and events, Scandalmonger embodies historical fiction at its best, politics at its most intriguing, and our Founding Fathers at their most notorious. For those who think that Washington sex scandals and lurid journalism are recent developments, this novel will be a revelation, for Safire shows how media intrusiveness into private lives-and politicians' cool manipulation of the press-are practices as old as the Constitution.

About this title

Review:

"The plot is fascinating, the issues raised are as crucial now as they were then, and the language used in the book, as one might expect from Safire's other role as a grammar maven, is terrific."-San Francisco Chronicle
"A fresh and thought-provoking look at the monument set: George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Aaron Burr, Meriwether Lewis, James Monroe and other dead
"Colonial all-stars are brought to life in these pages." -Rocky Mountain News (Denver)
"A gripping tale, a controlled and captivating web of carefully chosen truths and imagination."-Los Angeles Times
"The book is like a Safire column: It's tough, informative, colorful, and a good example of why we need scandalmongers-and newsmongers, too."-Peggy Noonan, George
"A devilishly constructed entertainment about political warfare, legal brinkmanship and assassination by quill pen."-Time
"Handsomely constructed and politically sophisticated . . . Scandalmonger is solidly grounded upon Safire's wide reading, his meticulous scholarship and his careful weighing of conflicting evidence."-The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0156013231
• ISBN 13: 9780156013239
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496