Kurt Andersen

Journalist, author, editor and cultural commentator Kurt Andersen has served as editor-in-chief of New York magazine, co-founded Spy magazine, hosts the Peabody Award-winning radio show "Studio 360," and has written two 600-plus-page novels: Turn of the Century and, now, Heyday. His Heyday tour brings him to the Decatur Library Wednesday, Jan. 16.

The protagonist, Ben Knowles, is obsessed with his romantic, cowboys-and-Indians idea of America. While he's English, he's mistaken as an American, often when sweaty, disheveled, hurried or speaking out. What is the message here about America? Certainly, America for a Briton of the upper class, which is what Ben was, is a rougher, more straightforward place where the respectable protocols were not necessarily observed, you know, and that's why he loved it. The sense that America was in flux and that anything could happen – that all possibilities were still open here – is what attracted Ben to the place and what he loved about it.

Vocabulary is important in Heyday, not only your use of several vernaculars that may seem strange to us now, but also noting within the story how language is changing. How did you manage such authenticity, and why was it important to focus on the era's languages? In a certain sense any historical fiction isn't – if it's about a period of history far enough back – really authentic, so it's an illusion of authenticity. My research included immersing myself in newspapers and diaries and books and writing of the period for a year, year and a half. Every time I came across a word or a phrase or a construction that I found interesting either because it was antiquated or because it seemed weirdly modern for 1848, I would write it down. So by the end of my research I had this enormous file of words and phrases. I wanted to use enough to give an interesting flavor of the time and its vernacular; both words that have fallen out of fashion and words that were brand-new at the time that were slang, like the phrase "OK."

Timothy Skaggs, one of the central characters, is a daguerreotype photographer. One of his subjects uses the term "Journalismville" to refer to the stretch of newspapers and publishers in the New York neighborhood where they work. The subject calls himself a "star of journalismville." What does his comment say about the celebrity of news? This is the age of P.T. Barnum, who was, before he ran circuses, an amazing impresario and promoter of show business in New York City, and he used the press to create stars. There was a Swedish singer named Jenny Lind who was a big star in Europe, but not really that well-known in the United States, and he signed her up for her first American tour and created this drumbeat of attention in the newspapers in New York for months before she arrived. So when she arrived, one fall day in 1850, a tenth of the population of the city was on the wharves to greet her because they'd become so hysterical with Jenny Lind mania.

For a podcast interview with Kurt Andersen and a full review of Heyday, click here.