Vidal uses this section to draw sketches and repeat gossip about many of these figures. It is the Gilded Age, and they are at once drawn into the opulent but vulgar world of robber barons, the Astors and others, who now that they are loaded are trying to become the heads of society. So, Schuyler has come back to America with two goals-to help get Governor Tilden elected as President in the next election so that he will be granted a post and to find a wealthy husband for his daughter. Schuyler’s fortune was wiped out in the Panic of ’73, and when d’Agrigento died unexpectedly, Schuyler was shocked to find that the Prince’s debts exceeded his fortune. He is accompanied by his daughter Emma, the widowed Princess d’Agrigente. Vidal’s sometime-narrator Charles Schuyler is returning to America after almost a lifetime in Europe, where he was documenting European events for the American press. When I was selecting a book to read for the 1976 Club, I realized I had read only one book by Gore Vidal and that so long ago I could barely remember it.
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