In his brilliant and dazzling new novel, Gore Vidal sweeps us into one of the most fascinating periods of American political and social change. The time is 1917. In Washington, President Wilson is about to lead the United States into the Great War. In California, a new industry is born that will transform America: moving pictures. Here is history as only Gore Vidal can re-create it: brimming with intrigue and scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen and American politics, from Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the author's own grandfather, the blind Senator Gore. With Hollywood, Vidal once again proves himself a superb storyteller and a perceptive chronicler of human nature's endless deceptions.

From the Paperback edition.

--Tom Tryon

"        Vidal succeeds in making his history alive and plausible."

--The New York Times

"        Vidal's originality derives from his as-

surance that he can create and command the American history of his novels, as much as he can their imaginary components. No other American writer I know of has Vidal's sense of national proprietorship. He summons the entire American scene into his confident voice. Vidal's presump-

tions work marvelously well for his

intentions."

--Richard Poirier,

The New York Review of Books

Also available from the Modern Library:

Burr  ¸  Lincoln  ¸  1876  ¸

Empire  ¸  Washington, D.C.

From the Hardcover edition.