SCANDALMONGER

Paul Hecht lends his patrician voice to William Safire's compelling novel of journalism and politics in the formative years of the United States. Scandal-monger dramatizes the battle for press freedoms at a time when even truthful revelations about government officials were often considered seditious. Hecht captures the formality of nineteenth-century speech while communicating intimately with today's reader. The book provides a clever perspective on scandals involving Hamilton and Jefferson by intertwining the life of yellow journalist James Callender with that of Maria Reynolds, Hamilton's mistress. (As Safire notes in a post-script, Callender and Reynolds never actually met.) Hecht delivers historic legal arguments with grace and dignity, although without much passion. K.C. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/MAR 01]