Heyday (novel)

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Heyday, by Kurt Andersen, is a historical novel. It was published in early 2007 by Random House.

The protagonist, Ben Knowles, is from London, but moves to the United States, the 'New World,' "craving vulgarity and strangeness" (page 6). In New York he encounters Timothy Skaggs, a journalist, novelist and pioneering photographer, Duff Lucking, a fire-fighter and Mexican War veteran and his sister Polly, an actress and prostitute. The novel charts the characters as they journey west and participate in the California Gold rush.