Reviews of two new books.   Scandalmonger: A Novel by William Safire (Simon & Schuster, 496 pages, $27) QUILL POWER In a perfect world, New York Times political columnist William Safire would give up writing his witty but ultimately pedantic essays about English grammar and the occasional spy novel and devote all his energies to what he does best--historical fiction. Freedom, his hefty 1987 novel about Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, was a magisterial blend of historical fact, informed speculation and perverse whimsy. In his new novel, Safire dishes up more of the same, although not on quite so grand a scale. The "scandalmonger" of the title is James Thomson Callender, one of a long-dead breed of fearless, poison pen-wielding newspapermen who enlivened the American political scene in the days of Adams and Jefferson. (It was Callender who first exposed Jefferson's longtime affair with teenage slave Sally Hemings.) Scandalmonger is captivating on two levels: first, as a sensational survey of the scandals (sexual and otherwise) that rocked the young republic at the dawn of the 19th century; second, as a fascinating examination of the seminal role the press played in shaping the political discourse of the day. Newspapers weren't the corporately owned, advertiser-driven enterprises of today but the mouthpieces of competing political factions and as such harbored no pretensions of journalistic objectivity. A partisan attack by one scandal sheet would be answered with an equally vociferous counterattack in another, all in a scabrous style that would make the typical exposé in Willamette Week read like a puff piece from Parade magazine. As he did with Freedom, Safire provides an "underbook" of notes at the end of the novel that allows the history-minded reader to separate fact from fiction, as well as a portrait gallery that tells what later happened to the major characters in the book. Scandalmonger secures Safire's place alongside Gore Vidal and E.L. Doctorow as one of our greatest historical novelists. Matt Buckingham   Mozart by Peter Gay (Viking, 163 pages, $19.95)   AMADEUS REDUX Peter Gay's slim, feisty retelling of the life of Mozart begins by stating that his life "is the triumph of genius over precociousness." One might expect Gay, whose credentials include professor emeritus of history at Yale and National Book Award winner, to turn out a dry and scholarly history of the great composer. Instead, Gay gives us a refreshing look at Mozart, warts and all. But unlike the cackling buffoon in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus or its Milos Forman-directed cinematic counterpart, here we get Amadeus (a name Gay points out Mozart detested) the composer. Gay has little patience for the genius man-child myth and debunks the composer-in-a-prolonged-state-of-adolescence idea through a careful examination of Mozart's letters to his loves and family. Though Mozart's salacious humor stayed with him until his death at 35 (fart jokes and all), the letters reveal an adult of extraordinary character. From his beginnings as a 5-year-old musical prodigy touring the courts of Europe to his years of "independence" supporting wife, children and parents, we see a young man who maintains his sanity under the strain of a crushing workload of composing and performing. Next, the author strips away the myth of the murderous Salieri (Mozart died of rheumatic fever) and of the art-for-art's-sake pauper ("I know of nothing more necessary," said Mozart, "than money"). Perhaps the greatest service Gay's book performs is in cataloging the composer's final years so that we can see the breadth--and sheer speed--of his genius. Bill Smith   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published March 15, 2000