Burr

This novel interweaves two distinct narratives set in the early American republic. One is the journal of Charlie Schuyler, a twenty-five-year-old law clerk working in the New York office of the elderly Colonel Aaron Burr in 1833. The other is Burr's own dictated memoir of the Revolution, the founding era, and the political rivalries that defined the nation's first decades. Through both voices, the novel reexamines the Founding Fathers from the vantage point of the man history cast as its villain.

In July 1833, Charlie accompanies Burr, now seventy-seven, to the Washington Heights mansion of Eliza Jumel, the wealthiest woman in New York, where Burr arrives with a clergyman and persuades the startled Madame to marry him on the spot. Charlie records the event for William Leggett, a journalist at the Evening Post, who soon reveals his true purpose: He wants Charlie to prove that Vice-President Martin Van Buren is Burr's illegitimate son, thereby preventing Van Buren from succeeding Andrew Jackson as president. Leggett proposes a pamphlet exposing the connection, offering Charlie a path into a writing career. Charlie agrees, though uneasy about betraying his employer.

Charlie begins his double life, cultivating Burr's confidence while quietly investigating. He visits Mrs. Rosanna Townsend's brothel on Thomas Street, where he meets Helen Jewett, a young woman from Connecticut with whom he begins a relationship. Mrs. Townsend grew up near Van Buren's birthplace of Kinderhook and knows rumors about Burr's connections there but cannot confirm paternity. Charlie also befriends Sam Swartwout, the collector of the port of New York and a devoted Burr loyalist, who provides political gossip and introductions.

Meanwhile, Burr's marriage to Madame deteriorates. He pockets the proceeds from her toll-bridge stock, sells her carriage without permission, and loses her investment in a Texas land scheme. Madame threatens divorce, and Burr settles in the law office.

Burr gives Charlie manuscript pages describing his Revolutionary War service, beginning with his volunteering at nineteen for the 1775 invasion of Canada under Colonel Benedict Arnold. General Richard Montgomery is killed during the doomed assault on Quebec, and Burr is promoted to brigade-major. His service on George Washington's staff at Richmond Hill in 1776 shapes his irreverent portrait of the commanding general as a man skilled at politics rather than warfare. He also meets Alexander Hamilton for the first time, finding him brilliant but envious. Transferred to General Israel Putnam's command, Burr conducts guerrilla raids in New Jersey while courting Theodosia Prevost at the Hermitage near Paramus. At Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778, he observes the Conway Cabal, a conspiracy among officers to replace Washington. The Battle of Monmouth Court House ruins Burr's health when Washington's confused orders leave his brigade exposed, and his men suffer heavy casualties.

In Charlie's 1833-1834 narrative, the author Washington Irving warns him against pursuing the Van Buren story, noting that the Vice-President will remember his enemies. Charlie discovers, in the papers of Matthew L. Davis, Burr's longtime friend and official biographer, a letter placing Burr near Kinderhook nine months before Van Buren's birth in December 1782.

Burr suffers a stroke and is nursed back to health by Madame. During his recovery, he dictates memoirs covering the founding of the republic: Washington's triumphant entry into New York in 1783, Burr's election to the U.S. Senate in 1791 through an alliance between the Livingstons and Clintonians, two powerful New York political factions, and his first meeting with Thomas Jefferson, who draws him into the Republican opposition against Hamilton's Federalist program.

Burr's portrait of Jefferson is the memoir's most sustained act of revisionism. He recounts visiting Monticello, where he observes Jefferson's enslaved concubine Sally Hemings and her children. Jefferson promises to support Burr for vice-president in 1796 but gives him only one Virginia vote, a betrayal Burr never forgives. In the election of 1800, Burr delivers New York to the Republicans, but when he and Jefferson tie at 73 electoral votes, the Federalist-controlled House must choose between them. Despite his daughter Theodosia's urging to seize the presidency, Burr honors his agreement with Jefferson. Jefferson wins after seven days of balloting, and Burr becomes vice-president, a decision he regrets for the rest of his life.

As vice-president, Burr is systematically excluded by Jefferson, who allies with the Clinton faction to destroy him politically. Burr presides over the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase with scrupulous fairness, acquitting Chase and thwarting Jefferson's attempt to control the judiciary, then delivers a farewell speech that moves senators to tears.

The duel with Hamilton forms the narrative's emotional center. Burr describes learning from a newspaper that Hamilton expressed a "more despicable opinion" of him at a dinner party. When Hamilton's evasive letters fail to provide an explanation, Burr issues the challenge. Charlie accompanies the elderly Burr to Weehawk Heights in New Jersey, where the old man reenacts the encounter with hallucinatory intensity. Burr insists Hamilton fired first and missed. Swartwout later reveals what Hamilton actually said: That Burr was the lover of his own daughter Theodosia.

Burr's final memoirs cover his western adventure, a plan to liberate Mexico from Spain with British support and frontier volunteers. He recruits Andrew Jackson and several senators and relies on General James Wilkinson to provoke a border war. But Wilkinson betrays Burr, sending an altered cipher-letter to Jefferson, who proclaims Burr guilty of treason before any trial. At Richmond, Chief Justice John Marshall presides over the trial, establishing that a president can be subpoenaed and ruling that advising treason is not treason under the Constitution. The jury acquits Burr, and he departs for four years of exile in Europe.

In Charlie's parallel narrative, Aaron Columbus Burr, the Colonel's illegitimate son, confirms that his father directed Van Buren's political career. Charlie meets Van Buren at the American Hotel, finding the Vice-President gracious but unwilling to reveal anything. He takes Helen from the brothel and sets up housekeeping with her, but after a miscarriage she returns to Mrs. Townsend without explanation. Charlie sells his research to the publisher of Davy Crockett's books, where the material will appear anonymously under Crockett's name. Leggett and Evening Post editor William Cullen Bryant, now supporting Van Buren, promise Charlie a consulship if he suppresses his own pamphlet.

In April 1836, Helen is murdered by Richard Robinson, a young clerk, and Charlie is briefly arrested before Robinson is identified. Charlie attends a presidential dinner at the White House, where Van Buren praises Burr as someone revered like a god by his generation. Burr dies on September 14, 1836, at Winant's Hotel on Staten Island. His last word is "Madame," and his divorce from Eliza Jumel arrives an hour after his death. He is buried at Princeton College, where both his father and grandfather served as president.

The novel closes in 1840 at Amalfi, Italy, where Charlie serves as American consul, married to an Italian-Swiss noblewoman named Carolina de Traxler. The fugitive Swartwout, who has embezzled over a million dollars from the port of New York, arrives and reveals that Burr referred to Van Buren as Charlie's "big brother," meaning Charlie himself is also Burr's illegitimate son. When his wife urges him to make a wish before the passing image of the Virgin Mary during a religious procession, Charlie reflects that there is no wish left to make that has not already been granted by his father Aaron Burr.