Heyday

Looks like a double whammy for y’all, ha-ha. Just finished Heyday yesterday.

This may by far be the best thing I have read this year. Heyday, described badly, is a group of friends who come together to make their journey west at the very beginnings of the discovery of gold in 1848 California.

Based off of the reviews on Amazon, I guess it may, or may not, be your cup of tea if you are nitpicking, which some of my reviews in the past have done. I do not know, maybe this is just the book I needed to start enjoying reading again without looking it as something I have to get done.

I loved the story, four friends from different places who just click and want something different for themselves, they just do not know what that is, but they are willing to travel however many miles to find it. I think for the first time in a long time, I enjoy all the characters in their own ways. A British immigrant who witnesses the beginning gunfire of the French Revolution and the killing of his best friend with an ever-growing love for America; a fifty-something-year-old man who has been everywhere in the world, and has tried law school and medical school, but finds his success in writing and his love in Daguerreotype photography; a young veteran from the Mexican War dealing with what we know as PTSD who has a penchant for fire fighting and… SPOILER… starting them; his sister, who is fearless and wants to find where she belongs in the evolving nation. I greatly appreciate that all four of them have some kind of interest in the world beyond their scope. They stay relevant to what is going on everywhere and have stances on issues that are important and that they continually interact with everyday.

I love that this is something that, at the root, can relatable to anyone, and the honesty of the language. There is an incredible amount of racism going on throughout the book, which of course I never stand for, but I appreciate the honesty of the human behavior presented in this time period. It is right before the Civil War, immigration is high, and equality is completely out the window. In books I have read in the past that involve pre-1950s as a time period, authors tend to stick strictly to the narrow scope of their story and world without mixing with world relevancy and honest language, which people today are going to prefer. I would rather know the true behavior of people in the past, that way I do not duplicate it. It is encouraging to know that it is just as much a mixed bag of beliefs as now, like main characters being against slavery of a fellow human being regardless of race or religious belief, especially with Ben as he is offered over and over the opportunity from his father and brother to lead the opium trade to the west coast and bring in thousands of Chinese to use as slaves to harvest the gold and he refuses, choosing simplicity with the one he loves.

I like that this is a different kind of historical fiction, where the characters interact with real-life people in history, like Charles Darwin, Abe Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe, etc, but more of as an outside character that does not have any affect on any history changing factors. Skaggs wrote an incredibly scathing article on Lincoln when he first joins the senate, Ben sends an animal specimen back to London for Darwin, and Charles Dickens and Poe get mentioned all the time. It plays into the characters still remaining relevant to the people around them.

I am actually going to keep this book. I would read it again, fer sure. If you would like to check out Heyday, I would start with here.

10/10