Gore Vidal s 1973 novel in the guise of a memoir of Burrs life is told with plenty of gossipy detail. Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, an ambitious journalist, is writing an anonymous pamphlet to prove that Martin Van Buren (Jacksons vice-president) is the bastard son of Aaron Burr. Schuyler wants not to harm Burr, but to ruin Van Buren. (As Vidal famously said, It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.) Burr, thinking that Schuyler is writing a biography, gives him a memoir. The novel combines Schuylers point of view with Burrs own memoir, and during the course of the double narrative, Schuyler discovers the truth about Van Buren--and about himself. Charlie Schuyler also appears in Vidals novels LINCOLN and 1876.