On hearing of Vidals death some weeks ago I felt quite sad and decided that it was time for me to pick up some more of his books. I opted for the first of his memoirs and was very glad to have done so. It is typically well written, entertaining and, even when it seems merely to resort to idle gossip about movie stars, writers, his bizarre family or life among the American ruling class with which he was associated, it seems perfectly justified as the stories within it are some of the juiciest one is ever likely to come across. Anais Nin, Marlon Brando, Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Newman, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, The Kennedy dynasty (including Jackie; his sister-in-law and former first lady of the United States), Norman Mailer et cetera. The list goes on for a while longer but I will have to be lazy and spare myself the chore of typing it.
Gores life take him from being navigator on a navy ship in the Pacific Ocean during World War Two to an esteemed writer living in peace among the Italian hills and everything in between. His life has taken him through Wars, Hollywood, into Politics and back out again to return to serious writing with his novel Julian, which is more or less where the book ends. It covers only the first thirty or forty years of Mr. Vidals incredible life and his wit is consistent throughout.

Includes his claim of sex with Kerouac. I like Vidal, one of the wittiest men, ever.

I must admit, I felt a bit like an imposter reading Vidal’s memoir. I have honestly never read a book by him, although I do have a copy of The City and the Pillar ready to read. I imagine I’ll get to it a lot sooner now. And despite not knowing the author’s literary work, I was still able to connect with him throughout this memoir. It was also nice to know he had his hand in several Hollywood films, such as “Suddenly, Last Summer” and “The Best Man”, among others.

The reason I read this book is because I started a reading challenge this year that has a different theme every month. The theme of this month was to read a memoir by someone whose career you wish you had. I had to think about it for a minute and I looked over at my bookshelf and saw Vidal’s memoir that I had won in a Goodreads giveaway (thanks again Goodreads). I picked it up, not knowing anything about Vidal’s career other than the fact that he was a notorious “gay” author. I would love to write books one day or scripts for the screen, so I figured why not jump in, even though I didn’t know much about him.

After finishing, I thought Vidal was very witty, to the point, and honest. These are all qualities I see in myself, so by some reason it made me feel closer to him. I enjoyed his candor on politics, even though he basically admits we’re all doomed when it comes to the American government. His stories about JFK, Jackie, and Bobby were great. Who knew Bobby liked underage girls and boys? I’m not sure the validity of those claims, but I was right there with my popcorn. It was also nice to hear how gay men maneuvered through their lives back in a time when they were not accepted. From the Roman baths, to literary queens reading each other to filth (Tennessee Williams vs. Truman Capote), and so many other fun stories, it’s clear that gay culture has always existed, albeit hidden and left to the pages of those who lived it.

Sometimes the author’s class did show up a bit and he commented on some things I felt were questionable, but after all, he was living at a time where status was everything. It’s hard for him not to operate in the same manner, but in this memoir I think he reflects a bit on why he did that and why it might have been wrong, sometimes. It’s nice to see someone have the ability to be so honest with themselves. I definitely recommend if you like politics, old Hollywood, vintage LGBTQ+ stories, or just plain old juicy memoirs.

Great memoir. Gossipy but in a good way [what could I have meant when I wrote this in my 1996 reading journal?]. Literary in its approach and style [of course]. Honest about himself and others [J&J Kennedy, Capote, et. al.].

Bitchy, witty perfection.

For most of the 20th century, Gore Vidal was a high-profile, famous and infamous, loved and reviled, hugely influential writer, essayist, contrarian, provocateur, gossip, actor, homosexual, would-be politician, critic, and raconteur. Vidal knew and socialised with anyone of the time who was anyone and was only too willing to tell theirs and his stories, flattering or (more typically) otherwise. Therefore, his memoirs are worthy of consideration if only for what they tell us about the gossipy lifestyles of the ridiculously wealthy and superficially famous within a culture which is now relegated to history. When published, such a memoir would have been quite scandoulous, but a generation later and within a culture far removed from the antiquated rules of Vidal’s polite society, most of those referenced are now sadly long gone and only barely remembered. The book, in a modern context, has become a curiosity of its time and Vidal is merely a former cultural giant who has gradually been rendered powerless. As time has outrun him, a new generation have found their own icons, norms, and versions of scandalous behaviour. Vidal’s memoir is beautifully written and intensely dense, and therefore requires much time and concentration, but whether it deserves this dedication is to be entirely determined by the historical context of the reader.

…but soon she will find other reasons for falling out with him, as she does with everyone.

…but as the Greeks sensibly believed, should you get to know yourself, you will have penetrated as much of the human mystery as anyone need ever know.

Is it only for a season that wholeness endures? On this matter Plato is silent. Experience suggests that desire of any kind is brief.

didnt want it or him to end.

The metaphor of a palimpsest for writing a memoir is an ingenious one, and there are scraps of Gore Vidal's well-textured parchment that are genuinely fascinating. Step-brother to Jackie Kennedy Onassis (nee Bouvier) and her sister Caroline Lee, and generally very well-connected from an early age, Vidal is nevertheless at pains to observe throughout the book that the essential choice he made was never to let his possible privileges make him passive. As he writes, "Jackie, Lee, and I were brought up in a wealthy manner and yet were penniless . . . Of necessity, Jackie married twice for money, with splendid results. Lee married twice, far less splendidly. I went to work."

That work has produced several fine and often ground-breaking novels. A weakness, though, of "Palimpsest" is Vidal's decision not to discuss these books and their consequences in greater detail. He is generally more preoccupied with personalities, and there are times when the book reads like a collection of memorable one-liners from sometimes memorable people. (Two of the better one-liner scenes: Tennessee Williams proposes that he and Vidal sleep together after a night of unsuccessful cruising. "Don't," responded Vidal, "be macabre." Or there's Williams' own wildly inaccurate metrics for why the Kennedys would never attain to the White House: "They're far too attractive.")

Vidal repeatedly laments the death of book reading, which has been overrun by the usual suspects of television, movies, and journalism. But Vidal's memoir often reveals how much he himself is overrun by the very thing--celebrity--that these media often reinforce. Vidal's lengthy disquisition on the Kennedys is easily the most self-indulgent and boring chapter in the book. Maybe Vidal's purpose is to reveal, by boring us, how uninteresting the Kennedys themselves really were. If Americans spend not enough time reading books and too much time obsessing over celebrity, it's frustrating that, with this chapter and other sections like it, the normally maverick Vidal join the ranks he purports to be above.

The best parts of this book, especially the touching descriptions of Vidal's one true love who died young at Iwo Jima, are unfortunately too sparse to hold the book together. Vidal has a way of ending paragraphs and large sections eloquently and with a rueful but not overly wistful touch (the final chapter is perfect). It's the verbiage between those well-cadenced endings that drags.

I became curious about Gore Vidal when I found myself in a discussion about his public feud with William F. Buckley. I was a teenager when this unfolded, but I remember being fascinated with Vidal, who in my eyes eviscerated Buckley by forcing him into that rhetorical checkmate wherein the ad-hominem is tossed into the ring (by Buckley in this case) and the bell rings: end of round, decision Vidal by TKO.
Palimpsest reveals Vidal in a particular form of memoir wherein the author gets to revisit, erase, right wrongs, clarify things that were set down on paper long ago. Vidal, who passed away in 2008, led an amazing life with friendships that numbered some of my literary and political heroes. He also speaks frankly about his homosexuality, lapsing into the vernacular with shocking ease.
What I enjoyed the most, perhaps, is Vidal's special brand of snark in which he lays bare the pretension of celebrity.
The audiobook was read masterfully by Jeff Cummings, who caught Vidal's particular dialect so well it was hard to remember that I wasn't listening to the man himself.
Now I am knee-deep into Vidal's "Burr." I expect I will read the entire corpus of the man's works before long.

I read this book while working at an art gallery my freshman year of college. I legit can't remember if it was enjoyable or not but it got me a LOT of attention from many older, moneyed gentlemen and the digs on Kerouac were choice for a young buck desperately trying to shake off the shadow of the beats.

Vidal's pen is filled with acid instead of ink. I expected to enjoy a bit of malice and gossip, but this was overwhelming. He's a disgruntled electric eel stuck in a tank filled with self-satisfied flat fish, dealing out unpleasant zaps to everyone and everything. The ego here is, as our current president likes to say, HUGE.