Many are familiar with Gore Vidal thanks to his verbal shoot-outs on TV with William F. Buckley, Jr., and Norman Mailer. Vidal called Buckley a "pro-crypto-Nazi" and Buckley retorted with, "Now listen, you queer." Readers know Vidal through his books, including his outstanding historical novels and Myra Breckinridge. He was an irascible, arrogant, abrasive S.O.B. Michael Mewshaw (Between Terror and Tourism) knew Vidal as a friend for nearly 40 years, and he pays his respects to him in this affectionate, sympathetic biography.
Vidal himself admitted he was a jerk--there's no "warm, lovable person inside... [just] cold water." Mewshaw first met him in Argentina when Vidal was 50. Contrary to popular opinion, he found him easy to talk to and friendly, "generous, hospitable, loyal to friends." Vidal took Mewshaw and his wife out to dinner that night (Gore's longtime companion, Howard Austen, came along) and picked up the tab--he always did. Vidal had an "air of aristocratic self-possession" about him, but Mewshaw also saw Vidal's lifelong generosity, something Vidal never talked about.
Vidal was famous for his opinionated remarks, and Mewshaw cites some great ones: "What are the three saddest words in the English language? Joyce Carol Oates." Mewshaw recounts many stories about his friend hobnobbing with film folk and chronicles Vidal's "slow-motion suicide" brought about by excessive drinking and depression. This "corrective portrait" is a fine rehabilitation of Vidal's legacy, sometimes brutally honest in the telling. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher