Vidal, Gore (1925–)

Gore Vidal is one of the most distinguished living writers in the United States and one of the most eloquent critics of the dominant trends in contemporary U.S. politics. While Vidal has worked in a variety of literary genres, his reputation rests, above all, on his best-selling novels and highly acclaimed essays.

Vidal has written more than two dozen novels. The City and the Pillar (1948), one of his earliest works, is generally regarded as the first sympathetic treatment of homosexuality in an American novel. Myra Breckinridge (1968), a bawdy satire with a transsexual protagonist, proved equally groundbreaking because of its radically unconventional treatment of gender and sexuality. Vidal's most important achievement as a novelist, however, is his fictionalized, sometimes iconoclastic history of the United States developed over the course of seven novels (Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Empire, Hollywood, The Golden Age). In addition to these works focusing on American history, Vidal is also the author of two historical novels, Julian (1964) and Creation (1981), which explore the theme of religion in antiquity.

For all his accomplishments as a novelist, Vidal enjoys even more renown as an essayist. In 1993, he received the National Book Award for his achievements in this genre and, indeed, many consider Vidal the finest American essayist of the second half of the 20th century. His essays fall mainly into two broad categories, literary criticism and politico-cultural commentary. Vidal's literary essays mostly address Anglo-American authors, and many of these writings serve to draw attention to the work of previously neglected or marginalized figures. The large body of work comprising the second category of essays mainly [Page 1436]addresses the history, politics, and moral culture of the United States and often displays Vidal's formidable gifts as a satirist. A recurrent theme in many of these essays is the transformation of the United States into a militaristic global empire, with all the institutional degeneration and political vices (and fateful results for the rest of the world) that this entails. Vidal's commentaries assume, moreover, that both the Republican and the Democratic parties have embraced this development and that there is little to distinguish one party from the other, ideologically or otherwise. Another prominent theme in many of Vidal's essays is the conventional sexual ethos of American culture, and in particular the homophobia and Puritanism that, in his view, permeate American society.

In addition to his politically oriented essays and many television appearances as a commentator on current affairs, Vidal has twice run unsuccessfully for major political office. In 1960, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives from New York, and in 1982, he was a candidate in the Senate primaries in California. Vidal also cochaired the People's Party in the early 1970s.