The Smithsonian Institution (First Edition)

The accomplished author's twenty-fourth novel combines his ongoing interest in American history with outrageous satire, science fiction, and social commentary, featuring a teenaged scientist who is recruited by the Smithsonian Institution to change history. 75,000 first printing.

YA-T. is 13 in 1939 and possesses, albeit unknowingly, the secret formula that will complement Einstein's theory and possibly alter the outcome of history as we know it. Because of his doodles on an algebra exam, the powers that beAand readers are never quite sure until the end who the powers areAarrange for him to be deposited at the doors of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Once inside, he is seduced in the Native American exhibit by a charming young thing he calls Squaw, but who turns out to be Frankie Cleveland, one of the womenAa very young oneAfrom the First Ladies exhibit. He soon realizes that the Institution contains many exhibits that come alive when the doors close, as well as laboratories for secret experiments. In his travels, he soon understands that he can visualize mathematical possibilities and respond to Einstein, Oppenheimer, and other scientists who are closed up in the museum along with a lobotomized Abraham Lincoln and even a statue representing T., killed in action during World War II. Obviously, much belief must be suspended and the time-travel episodes and glances at history both as it was and might have been are convoluted, but Vidal does know his American history. Through this disjointed, lightweight page-turner, readers pick up a historical awareness, especially of the presidents, almost painlessly. T.'s coming of age and subsequent romps with Frankie are risqu?, but all in fun and might be a further inducement to read on. An intriguing introduction to Vidal as well as enjoyable historical fiction.
Susan H. Woodcock, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Having astutely explored several historical periods in his fiction (Lincoln, etc.), Vidal has now produced an eccentric novel about a literal time machine and a boy who uses it to save the world (or one version of the world) from within the headquarters of Washington, D.C.'s public museum complex. On Good Friday, 1939, 13-year-old T. is summoned from his D.C. boarding school to the Mall for a mysterious meeting. It seems the outwardly average (if unusually attractive) young man has scribbled, in the margins of a math test, an equation that may be essential to the upcoming war effort. Cloistered with Oppenheimer, Einstein, Charles Lindbergh, the Founding Fathers and other historical personages who have been kept alive in the Smithsonian's magical exhibits, T. struggles to solve the mysteries of space-time, prevent the coming war (in which he is doomed to die) and hold on to cradle-robbing Frankie Cleveland, the immortal 22-year-old version of Grover's First Lady. Part Alice in Wonderland, part Twain's Mysterious Stranger, part fictionalized autobiography, this bagatelle reintroduces many of the characters and themes already treated in Vidal's historical novels and memoirs. T. bears at least enough resemblance to Vidal's well-publicized great love?a St. Albans classmate who died at Iwo Jima?to explain the novelist's obvious affection for him. If the tale of T. remains a mostly private, somewhat rueful joke, it will no doubt charm Vidal's most devoted readers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Another merry riff on Washington power politics, struggles, and failures from the venerable curmudgeon and sage: an appealingly unholy marriage of Burr, Duluth, and a suavely Vidalian amalgam of Tom Sawyer and Tom Swift. In 1939, a 13-year-old prep school student who's identified only as ``T.'' (and who, we soon learn, is a ``teenage mathematical genius'') is yanked out of classes and driven to the title location's main building (``the Castle''), where, after meeting wax figures who come mischievously to life after the doors are closed to the public, he becomes a pivotal figure in crisscrossing plans to either avert or win a forthcoming world war. Specifically, undisclosed forces (among them may be James Smithson, the Institution's presiding genius) have determined that T., also, incidentally, ``the best schoolboy pitcher in the Washington, D.C., area,'' may possess knowledge that will enable his country to detonate a nuclear bomb without producing the ensuing chain reaction certain to destroy the world. After a disturbing first few hours within the Castle, during which he's declared ``prime veal'' and almost parboiled in the Early Indian Exhibit Room (then relieved--to his relief--of his virginity by a nonNative American ``Squaw''), T. settles sturdily down to business, reassuring a depressed-looking Abraham Lincoln and a truculently pacifist Charles Lindbergh, explaining to Robert Oppenheimer just where Einstein went wrong, and, thanks to a jury-rigged thermostat, traveling about in ``innumerable parallel pasts.'' Only a cad would give away the beguiling results of T.'s refreshingly ingenuous adventures and discoveries--not to mention the dozens of ingenious anachronistic gags with which the narrative is studded. This may be the wisest book that Vidal--this incomparably urbane observer of our revered past, debased present, and unpromising future--has even written. It is, as well, entertainment of the highest order. Even Norman Mailer will like this novel. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In 1939, a 13-year-old mathematical genius is secretly summoned to the Smithsonian. The first surprise is that the exhibit dummies come to life after closing time; the second is when he's informed by the Chief Director (who has an uncanny resemblance to Abe Lincoln) that he's stumbled upon a formula for a powerful bomb, possibly the ultimate solution to the war in Europe. But the perceptive and sensitive youngster also has a knack for quantum physics and time travel; using the unique resources of the museum, perhaps he can change a few events in history so that World War II will never happen. The boy has a personal stake in this: he's seen himself as one of the casualties. Fans of Vidal's comic novels can expect the usual mixture of earthiness and erudition, though on a more restrained level; the novel provides the author with the chance to put words in the mouths of a dozen presidents, noted scientists, and pop culture heroes (Lindbergh makes an appearance, as does Walt Disney). Good fun, and sure to garner attention because of the high-profile author.?Marc A. Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Vidal's latest work is a rather silly novel, much beneath the talents of one of the premier American writers. Time travel is the theme as Vidal opens his story on Good Friday, 1939. An adolescent schoolboy in Washington, D.C., called T. has been summoned from his private school dormitory by a phone call that directs him to go to the Smithsonian Institution, for reasons certainly unclear to him--and to us, for that matter. Closed for the holiday, as T. discovers to his amazement, the venerable castlelike building on the Mall now plays host to past worlds come alive. The dummies of the First Ladies exhibit appear living and breathing; President Roosevelt confers with his predecessors on the fateful current events swirling around the world. T. learns that his presence at the institution was requested because of his ability with numbers, which could lead to building improved bombs. Vidal's love of history is certainly at play here, but the novel rests on a premise too flimsy to sustain continued interest. Still, Vidal's name as well as the popularity of his previous historical novels will guarantee certain demand for this one. Brad Hooper