In this end-of-the-century biography about one of the most important gay authors and personalities of our century, Fred Kaplan sums up the life and creative output of Gore Vidal. Finding enough words to describe this multifaceted man has never been difficult. One can use novelist, cultural critic, essayist, comic satirist, image maker, provocateur, actor, homosexual, bisexual, controversial, brilliant, and confrontational.

In Gore Vidal: A Biography, Fred Kaplan worked from 2000 pages of notes taken at 250 interviews with Vidal. he interviewed another 150 individuals including Vidal’s companion of 50 years, Howard Austen, so we get some input that’s not directly from the master. Kaplan also worked from 2000 of Vidal’s letters--mostly unpublished--which he used to create a backbone for this story of Vidal's life to this point in time. The book is packed with photos, a large section of Endnotes and a huge index that allows you to pinpoint anyone GV ever dealt with.

Among the stories described fully and accurately for the first time are some of Vidal’s bisexuality. Three famous women are named: Anais Nin (her age, his interest in men), Joanne Woodward (he proposed in the mid-1950s while she was waiting for Paul Newman to marry her) and Claire Bloom (who might have married him if he had asked her).

In a chapter titled “The Same Sinking Boat,” the author tells of Truman Capote and Norman Mailer coming back into Vidal’s life in the mid 1970s. In 1971, Mailer and Vidal had appeared together on the Dick Cavett Show. Mailer verbally attacked him on the show. Truman told a “naughty” story about GV to an interviewer for Playgirl magazine, and Vidal sued him for slander. Capote’s apology is printed in the book for the first time.

Vidal did a number on both these authors in “Myron.” He made a charicature of Truman as “a giggling, inept gossip named Maud, a snobbish hairdresser with a ‘damp-looking face.’ “ Capote’s behavior revolted Vidal. He felt it was one thing to be a Queen, but it was altogether “another thing to be a malicious sissy whose fantasy life damaged others.”

Mailer appears as “a drunken, semi-violent cook named Whitiker Kaiser, a small fat old man of fifty or so with a full head of wiry gray hair.” This characterization showed Vidal’s resentment of “Mailer’s attack on him . . . and what it represented, especially his homophobia.” Later Mailer attacked him physically at a New York party in what Vidal referred to as “The Night of the Small Fists.”

Other people discussed in this chapter art Bobby Kennedy, George Plimpton, William Buckley and comments about Vidal’s perceived anti-Semitism. In the book we also get more on the role of GV’s writing portions of the screenplay for the film classic Ben Hur. Vidal thought Charlton Heston was totally untalented. Let me say that this book is full of the telling of delicious insults and retorts. For me, Vidal’s own memoir Palimpsest, covered it all better and Vidal cut no corners when he dished the dirt. He is simply one of the best raconteurs (gay or otherwise) this country has ever produced.

If you missed that book which only covers the first half of Gore Vidal’s life. This one is well-written and will take you up to the current date with assurance. One reviewer said “Rather than analyzing Vidal’s body of work, Kaplan provides an intensive look at the man himself . . .” It’s quite a look, so If you like Gore Vidal, this is one for you. Kaplan lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is currently working on a biography of Mark Twain. (Doubleday, ISBN:0-385-47703-1).

Ed Grover – 2003

You can read Gore Vidal's take on his own life on my review of Palimpsest. A Memoir at http://www.epinions.com/content_117875641988

Another book by Gore Vidal contains his most amusing essays on Venice: http://www.epinions.com/content_56621108868


Recommended: Yes