The horizon beckons eternally in Heyday. A larger-than-life historical novel, it illuminates America's journey toward modern times, covering the weighty subjects of revolution, religion and technological progress - all with the sharp wit and amused eye of its author, Kurt Andersen.

Wit, of course, is Andersen's stock in trade: The author is the former editor of the '80s counterculture Spy magazine and bestselling author of the post-millennium social satire Turn of the Century. His newest novel finds its roots in an exhibit that Andersen guest-curated at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum called "Faster, Cheaper, Newer, More: Revolutions of 1848," which displayed the turbulent changes of an emerging age.

Spanning vast intellectual and geographic territory, Heyday portrays the growing pains of changing societies, measuring with a confident pace the opportunities and pitfalls that mark such times.

"Benjamin Knowles wobbled into the New World," writes Andersen, in a first line that, in many ways, captures the entirety of Heyday. Knowles is a spirited British gentleman enthralled with the progressive innovations of 1848, making his way with haste into a larger playground.

Knowles' fascination revolves largely around machines, these new agents of perpetual motion. Ruminating on a train leaving London at 50 mph, Knowles admits that, "He was in the thrall of speed, the new speed of steam but also of clipper ships, of the telegraph's instant mail and the instant portraits of the daguerreotype. It was this that distinguished him in his own mind from most people he knew."

Rambling into Paris in February with his friend Lloyd Ashby, Benjamin is shocked as the future City of Lights erupts into revolutionary violence and Ashby is murdered. Still reeling from Ashby's death, he's stalked by Gabriel Drumont, a despondent French sergeant who has sworn revenge against the Englishman, whom he believes killed his brother Michel during the conflict.

Fleeing Europe, Knowles emerges in the gaslit saloons of old New York, where he is quick to ally himself with a rogue's gallery of ne'er-do-wells, each with widely differing virtues and vices. The extensive back stories of Knowles and his new friends is delivered during an overly long first act that gives much insight into each character's dubious motivations but proves less interesting than the rich milieu of their current surroundings.

America is many things to Knowles' companions, but most of all it's the promise of a better world and brighter future just over that fabled horizon. Most damaged is fireman Duff Lucking, a Mexican-American War veteran who is haunted by his crimes and compulsions. Duff's saving grace is his hot-blooded sister Polly, a determined young stage actress and sometimes prostitute who quickly becomes the object of Knowles' affections.

Odd as they are, these siblings pale in comparison to tabloid journalist Timothy Skaggs, an unabashed scoundrel who delights not only in the cheap words of his trade but also in vivid imagery, capturing the great fires of New York with his camera.

Along the way, Andersen injects his animated scenes with remarkable detail, dropping in asides about the theater scene, the "riot of advertising," the proverbial "Gangs of New York," and the first hints of civil war. Several real-life icons of the age make cameo appearances, including Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman, the mysterious orphan Kaspar Houser, steely-eyed detective Allan Pinkerton and a hilariously uncouth Charles Darwin.

All this amazement is presented with boyish earnestness, but there's a genuine charm to Andersen's careful avoidance of mockery. As Knowles is freed from his prim and hoary English life, so, too, has Andersen thrown off the chains of satire and refused to succumb to the pretensions of literary fiction. The author, and by extension his protagonist, embraces each scene with such relish - whether it's marveling at the great ships navigating New York Harbor or debating democracy over a stiff drink - that it's hard not to be swept along.

Like one of Knowles' beloved trains, this behemoth of a story is slow to get started, but once it picks up steam, Knowles and his companions hurtle across America at breakneck speed. A quarrel over Polly's proclivities sends her packing for Glee, an Indiana health cult recalling T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville that gives Andersen plenty of room to crack wise at religious zeal. With a detour through Chicago, pursued hotly by Drumont, these intrepid travelers soon arrive in California, driven by the mighty temptation of the Gold Rush. Andersen is surprisingly adept in tying up each of his quartet's tangled stories with a satisfying theatricality.

That old advice to "Go west, young man," has rarely been followed with such verve. Manifest Destiny may be a questionable political doctrine, but it drives forward a superb work of fiction here.

Hold on to your hats.

Righteous résumé

In addition to authoring three books, including a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (Turn of the Century), Andersen is:

• Host of public radio program Studio 360

• Co-founder and past editor of Spy magazine

• Former editor in chief of New York magazine

• Former columnist for The New Yorker

• Former architecture and design critic for Time magazine

• Co-creator of Loose Lips, a satirical off-Broadway revue with productions in New York and L.A.

Heyday

• By Kurt Andersen. Random House, 640 pages, $26.95.

• Grade: A

Andersen is best known for his stewardship of the snarky Spymagazine, a cultural touchstone of the '80s. The magazine's history is chronicled in last year's Spy: The Funny Years, by Andersen, Graydon Carter and George Kalogerakis (Miramax, $39.95)-chosen by the Rocky as one of the 10 best coffee-table picks of 2006.

Clayton Moore is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Kirkus Reviews, Bookslut and Paste Magazine. He comments on genre fiction at claywriting.blogspot.com.

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