I learned that Gore Vidal liked John Kennedy, but was not a fan of Bobby. I also learned quite a bit about Tennessee Williams; a little about Truman Capote; and quite a bit about what he thought of Jackie O. He also talks at length about people most people have no interest in; but it turns out they do make for interesting stories, sometimes. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it, if you are interested in reading about Gore's experiences and stories about other writers (Kerouac, Burroughs, and the previously mentioned writers too). Also, it helps to have an interest in politics.

I have always really liked Gore Vidal's historical fiction ("Burr" is one of my particular favorites, as well as the followup "1876") and I knew he had a reputation for being kind of an asshole in real life, but in this book he doesn't come off so much an asshole as he does cold, distant, and disaffected. The many anecdotes relayed in this memoir were amusing enough, I guess, and if it was Vidal's mission to make his life seem decadent and glamorous he surely succeeded. I just wish there would have been more about his creative process, his spirit, his soul. I wanted an insight into the secret struggles of a great writer, not the same old celebrity glamor tales I can get any old where.

I read this memoir when it first came out....and find that a 2nd time around makes it even MORE pleasurable.

Hard to get through, pretty boring in places ,the early part about mother, father and grandparents are ok. But then we come to the celebrities and it descends in a rather spiteful gossip trivia , gore comes out of it like a shining beacon (i don,t think). Having read the book it failed miserably for me to enjoy it, so its a not winner for me so therefore two stars.

Early in the book Gore Vidal makes the point that this is not an autobiography; it's a memoir. Too many autobiographies read like an excuse for the author’s failings and a platform for their supposed triumphs, as though they are getting their two cents in before someone else gives the final accounting. Vidal offers no excuses, even admitting in the beginning that he chose the title, and later realized he had been mispronouncing the word for years, and didn’t fully understand the origin of its meaning.

In Palimpsest he plays with time like a magician, deftly moving from one place to another, never losing the reader, an uncommon fluidity where most memoirs follow a strictly age based progression. There was no prose for prose sake, or lyrics over substance, yet his writing draws the reader in as though you were spending an evening listening to incisively funny repartee. He had me chuckling in the first few pages. Essentially, he’s the guy at a cocktail party you’d most like to spend the evening with.

He has an almost clinical insight into people and it doesn’t hurt that he’s known some of the icons of his age. His slant on Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Jackie Onassis (they shared a stepfather) and countless other characters of his time are priceless. There is no lack of dysfunctional family dynamics, either. Though he doesn’t use his upbringing as anything more than a travelogue of how he got where he is. He continues to be the most erudite voice of the anti-establishment. You can catch vintage Vidal on YouTube sparring with William F. Buckley on a sixties talking head show in a game of wordsmanship.

For all his wittiness and fascinating stories, the real value is that his memoirs chronicle how his life as a writer evolved. At a critical juncture early in his career, he decided to go ahead with the publication of his third novel, The City and the Pillar, over the objections of his agent. It contained overt homosexual overtones and true to form, the publishing industry blackballed him for the content. That he chose truth over conformity, and the commercial success that comes with it, was a defining moment. It seems the writers who only give their audience exactly what’s expected end up being trapped by their success.

His decision led to Hollywood and Broadway, experiences that ultimately made up for the early rejection. It is what allowed him the freedom to produce a wide range of work, from Myra Breckenridge (a one finger salute to the entertainment industry), to Visit to a Small Planet, and historical fiction, Lincoln, being his most famous.

Palimpsest is a gift from Vidal. He shared the essence of who he is with clarity, style and honesty. Isn’t that what art is all about?

This book took me quite a while, for me, to read. Get ready to rev up the Google box for quick identification of people, places and incidents. Mr. Vidal is not flowery or wordy. Why write a paragraph when you can have succinct sentences where every word had meaning. This memoir is set in periods and topics. 1/3 of the book is based on the topic of family. Who, when, where are all divulged and is fascinating. My favorite part is the topics of other authors, and gossip. This comes later in the volume and I wished I had read it first.

An extraordinary read by an extraordinary man. Rich with little known facts, obscure celebrity gossip and political insider dirt.

This is a great read.

È il quarto titolo di Vidal che leggo: Giuliano, capolavoro, l'età dell'oro, altro capolavoro, la statua di sale, pietra miliare. Poi incappo nella biografia e ci metto tipo un mese a finirla perché è noiosissima.
Vidal è cresciuto tra la gente che conta, nel periodo d'oro della cultura americana. C'era in ogni avvenimento fondamentale del 20º secolo. Ha conosciuto chiunque. E ce lo fa sapere.
A volte i paragrafi sembrano elenchi telefonici.
Poi il terribile vizio, così radical chic di chiamare tutti per nome, Jack, Jakie, Bob. Ma di chi parliamo? Al 100 Jock, Jake, Jack, mi son persa.
Non posso nemmeno dire che sia particolarmente ben scritto, perché non riesce a dare alla narrazione un'anima.
Nonostante sia una voce diretta della cultura americana, nonostante racconti retroscena divertenti e sconosciuti, nonostante si parli di ogni personaggio famoso dagli anni 40 in poi, non riesce affatto ad essere coinvolgente.
È, ripeto, noiosissimo.
Un episodio sfortunato.

Esageratamente aneddotico e auto celebrativo. Confuso, scritto male, con continui salti che inducono il lettore a distrarsi. Nel complesso deludente. Due stelle solo perché l'autore ha scritto bei romanzi

When Queen Elizabeth II drew her final breath last week at the venerable age of 96, a debate was reopened on both sides of the Atlantic about the merits of Constitutional Monarchy versus Republicanism. In Britain, where National mourning verged on hysteria, people queued for days just to file past the coffin, leading some to ask whether this fetish for pomp and circumstance was really that healthy and if perhaps a presidential system might be what was needed after all. Conversely, Stateside, given the depth of public interest in the Windsors and their deeds, especially since Meghan Markle saw fit to marry into the Firm, some debated whether this revealed a deep-seated nostalgia and even a secret longing for a Royal Family of some sort. In the background of all this one can almost hear Gore Vidal sighing and tutting in his grave. If he were here he might reasonably remind us that America has always had its royal families, thank you very much. What else are the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bushes, even, gulp, the Trumps, but competing dynasties waiting for their next shot at the throne?

Vidal should know, his kin were one of the oldest families in America, partly responsible for the break from Britain in the first place and he often wrote as if America was his own, saying at one point "My ancestors helped start this country and I have a very possessive sense of it." From his aristocratic beginnings as the grandson of Senator Thomas P. Gore, and distant cousin of presidential nominee Al Gore, Vidal junior developed into a writer and polemicist who crafted novels about American history and provided some of the most brilliant witticisms of the era. Vidal put the WASP in waspish and reading a collection of his quotes on their own is hilarious: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a part of me dies." "A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."" Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television." Vidal was witty, but there was real substance there, and few people could match his winning combination of acerbic, biting wit underpinned by deep historical knowledge . Think Noam Chomsky mixed with the acidity of Oscar Wilde.

This book, Palimpsest, is his contribution to the genre of literary memoir. It recalls his long life and is told in sporadic flashback as his contemporary self adds commentary on his past, populated by a luminary cast of characters. And what a cast! JFK, Tennessee Williams, Marlon Brando, Princess Margaret, William F Buckley, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg. These are just some of the people Vidal knew, in some cases intimately, and his memoirs are hilariously scabrous in the way he recalls their lives. One chapter indecorously begins "As I was fucking Jack Kerouac one day..."However, as well as being gossipy and droll the book is memorably poignant, particularly about Vidal's first love, the doomed young soldier Jimmy Trimble who was drafted at 18 into the marines and killed at Iwo Jima after a whirlwind romance with Vidal was abruptly cut short by Pearl Harbour. Vidal never quite recovered from this loss, and his character seems to have formed itself protectively around the wound. In his later years he became a rather miserly and sharp-tongued critic of American society and the Empire, and even veered into the realms of conspiracy theory at certain points, openly questioning whether 9/11 was a hoax, and sending long love letters to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber.

One can just about forgive him these lapses by remembering what he was like when he was good. His books 'Lincoln', 'Burr' and 'Julian' are some of the best historical novels of his time, and he also wrote wonderfully for the silver screen in films such as Ben Hur. Moreover he was an open and confident defender of being queer at a time when US society had become self-consciously puritan again. The fact that a recent biopic was shelved is a shame because it denies us the chance to see him portrayed where he was always determined to be, up on screen, the King of the world. In the end he will stay what he always truly was, a patrician insider and critic of American society and the lies it likes to tell itself. America may no longer have a Monarchy to speak of, but Gore Vidal came closer than most to being genuine American royalty.

Vidal's wit astounds and his insights resonate, at least for me. I particulary like a passage from page 193, "I understand now why the old enjoy the obituaries of contemporaries. I think it is a sense of relief in letting go for good of people whose presence one no longer needs."

The Newsweek review of this book says it best,
"Vidal is a kind of contemporary Byron: patrician, major writer, glamourboy, flouter of norms..."

Great book.