Book Description
Gore Vidal has been entertaining, and occasionally outraging, the American public for fifty years. In the course of his long career, Vidal has set new intellectual and artistic standards for American historical fiction and has also established himself in the first rank of contemporary social satirists. This is the first full-length study to include Vidal's most recent novels and the first designed to meet the needs of the general reader as well as students of contemporary literature. It includes discussions of Lincoln, Empire, Hollywood, and Live from Golgotha, as well as his earlier novels. Baker and Gibson show that while Vidal's novels are tremendously entertaining, they are also serious examinations of a recurring theme--the decline of the West in general and the decline of the United States in particular. A biographical sketch of the writer precedes a general discussion of Vidal's early novels. Each of the following chapters examines an individual novel, from Julian (1964) to Live from Golgotha (1992), with special emphasis on artistic development and historical and intellectual context. To help the reader understand the recurring themes in Vidal's fiction, Baker and Gibson group the novels by type. First are the historical fictions, those of the ancient world (Julian, Creation), and the "American Chronicles," Vidal's family saga of the United States over the course of its history. Second are the social satires, what Vidal calls his "inventions," of which the best known is Myra Breckinridge. The discussion of each novel includes sections on plot and character development, thematic issues, narrative style, and an alternative critical approach from which to read the novel. A complete bibliography of Vidal's fiction, select bibliography of his other works, and bibliography of reviews and criticism of the works examined complete the book and will be helpful to students, librarians, and adult book discussion participants. This long-needed up-to-date study of Gore Vidal is a key purchase by secondary school and public libraries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

'...and when we drink, we die'.
A Thirsty Evil is an excellent collection of short stories, both in terms of literary merit and sheer entertainment value.Gore Vidal tells brilliant tales in an extremely beguiling, deceptively simple style, that misses no important detail, and manages to suggest all kinds of hidden meanings the reader is allowed to unpack and interpret as he may.

Three of the stories have homosexual themes.Brilliantly plotted (as are the rest of the stories), Three Stratagems has two narrators, one a young male prostitute plying his trade in Key West, and the other his elderly pick-up, George Royal.The contrasting view-points accentuate the pathetic sadness of both mens' lives.The climax - expertly prepared for - is superbly done.The final sentence is perfectly judged acidic irony.The Zenner Trophy is the story of an expulsion of a pair of male students caught doing something 'wrong'.More interesting as a character than Flynn, the gay student (a little too idealized), is the unfortunate Mr. Beckman, the teacher sent to give him his marching orders, who progresses during the course of the story from sycophancy towards the repulsive, reactionary Principal (an incisive demolition job by Vidal), to sympathy for Flynn, to hate 'for reminding him' that he is moving 'farther and farther from this briefly glimpsed design within a lilac day'.Pages From An Abandoned Journal is the story of the homosexual awakening of an American student in Paris, through his meetings with an 'infamous', opium-addicted, ex-male prostitute (retired at thirty-six) who began his career at the age of sixteen, and whose primary pleasure now is pursuing - and catching - fourteen-year-old boys.The contrast between the early, 'straight' part of the journal ('Hilda...is a good deal softer than she looks and it was like sinking into a feather mattress') and, after a few years of silence, his total transformation into as queer a queer as you could want, seems perfectly natural.The ending indicates how the more people change, the more they remain the same.

Robin is a very short, but effective story of two boys learning about the reality of human viciousness.Erlinda And Mr. Coffin is the hilarious account of an amateur theatrical production that goes very, very wrong, narrated splendidly by 'a gentlewoman in middle life', in 'reduced' circumstances, who has to take in lodgers such as the unusual title characters.

A Moment Of Green Laurel is one of the two masterpieces in the book, a beautifully-written, ambitious story.The climactic event - the meeting of an older man with, literally, his childhood self - is as inconclusive as his meeting, earlier, with various people, including his mother, during an Inauguration Day of a new President in Washington.As the story ends, one may conclude - taking the hints, such as the phrase 'definite schizoid tendency' - this is probably a case of solipsistic insanity.The powerful atmosphere and intimations of loss, however, go on tantalizing the mind.

A perfect example of the wholly satisfying enigmatic story, which fuses terror and beauty, the mundane and the profoundly mysterious, the personal and the cosmic, is the book's seminal piece, The Ladies In The Library.The story relates the seemingly ordinary, but deeply unsettling, events that befall Walter Bragnet, a fifty-one-year-old author (with a 'heart murmur'), over a two day period visiting (along with his only remaining relative) the long-ago sold off family home in Winchester, Virginia.He meets the present owner, Miss Mortimer, her nephew Stephen (who dislikes his Aunt) and, the next day, the two Parker sisters who, after lunch, sit 'like judges' in the library, knitting, and who Walter, nearly asleep, hears discussing him and seemingly choosing between different methods of ending his life.The unutterably beautiful, yet frightening climactic confrontation between Walter and Miss Mortimer is only a few paragraphs away.

Gore Vidal is a true artist, and this collection is essential reading.

The title comes from Shakespeare's play, Measure For Measure, Act One, Scene Two: 'Our natures do pursue / Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, / A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die'.

A Treasure-trove of Vidal Stories
Many of us know Gore Vidal through his novels and essays so it was quite a find to get a copy of these seven short stories. He wrote them from 1948 to 1956-- the dates are given after each story-- and like his ground-breaking novel THE CITY AND THE PILLAR, published during the same period (1948), several of these stories are about controversial topics for that period and were well ahead of their time. Others show his comic gift as well as his insight into Washington politics.

In "Three Stratagems" George Royal is an older man who picks up a young hunk in Key West who gives himboth a false name (Michael) and life although he understands he shouldn't talk too much at first in order not to be found out. "I [the hunk] told him I'd played football at Princeton which was not true." What is most interesting about this story is the cat and mouse game that these two men engage in as their dinner date progresses. Whatever George has in mind for the evening's finale comes to a halt when the hunk has an epileptic seizure. In "The Robin" two nine-year-olds discover they are capable of extreme cruelty as they kill a wounded, helpless bird.

"Erlinda and Mr. Coffin" is a terribly clever look at race and class with a surprise ending as good if not better than anything O'Henry ever wrote. In "Pages from an Abandoned Journal" Vidal traces the ten year journey of the narrator, who starts out as a somewhat innocent, somewhat straight man from Toledo studying in France and seeing a woman with whom he is having bad sex. In his May 22, 1948 journal entry he writes: "It wasn't very successful last night. Hilda kept talking all the time which slows me down, also she is a good deal softer than she looks and it was like sinking into a feather mattress." Of course he ultimately gets into alcohol, furniture and "attractive" men as we suspected he would from the beginning.

My favorite story is "The Zenner Trophy," so modern that it could have been written in 2006. Days before commencement at a private, ritzy eastern high school, Sawyer and Flynn, two star athletes, havebeen caught in a "moral lapse" by two faculty members, have just been expelled and will not graduate. Flynn then won't be given the Zinner Trophy for outstanding athletic excellence. Beckman, Flynn's advisor and deep in the closet, has the unpleasant task of dealing with this tawdry situation since the rock-like principal is only interested in the "Grail-like quest for endowments." In a moving scene that is way ahead of Stonewall, the defiant Flynn tells Beckman that what he and Sawyer have done is nobody's business but theirs, "after all it doesn't affect anybody else." Then the reader learns that contrary to what everyone aware of the situation thinks-- that Sawyer has already left school in disgrace-- that he is waiting for Flynn at "the inn" and that the two of them will go to college together.

These seven stories are very fine indeed and should appeal to Vidal fans as well as new readers as well.

Vidal's Perceptions and Skills Encapsulated
The few reviews of this book already present when I wrote this covered the salient points well with one exception: "The Ladies in the Library" is not merely an example of evil in human relations but one of consummate horror in a vein that brings the Hitchcock masterpiece "Psycho" to mind.

Vidal's only short story collection
I bought a rather tattered, cheapish 1960's paperback of 'A Thirsty Evil' some years ago ("an insight into the world of unconventional relationships", with an added essay 'On Pornography'). Puzzling, this is Gore Vidal's only collection of short fiction. He never seems to have taken to the format, yet he was of a generation that thrived on it (he's elsewhere adept at the short form - see his essays).

For readers used to Vidal's later, witty style, you may be disappointed. There is no 'Duluth' or 'Myra' here. All of these stories were written between 1948-56, at a time when Vidal was writing a bunch of diverse novels, before finding his voice with 'The Judgement of Paris' and 'Messiah'.

Several of these stories were published in the 'New World Writing' journal of the early fifties. I believe Vidal helped establish that periodical, which is notable for publishing Chapter 1 of 'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller in 1955 (called 'Catch-18').

My favourite stories in this collection are 'Erlinda and Mr. Coffin', darkly funny and written through the voice of "a gentlewoman in middle life" & 'A Moment of Green Laurel', where a man meets himself as a boy, a la 'The Twilight Zone'. 'Laurel' is haunting and seemingly autobiographical (from a writer who calls himself "the least autobiographical of authors").

The other stories are a mixed bunch - 'Three Strategems' is an interesting but rather cold depiction of Key West in the late 40s; 'The Robin' is a very brief reminiscence; 'The Zenner Trophy' tries a little too hard to preach its agenda - that it is perfectly normal for healthy young men to want to sleep with each other - no matter how perfectly right Vidal is in his opinion; 'Notes From An Abandoned Journal'; 'Ladies in the Library'.

From the mid-1950s (when this book was first published), until the publication of 'Julian' in 1964, Vidal was unable to financially support himself from his novels (he cites the New York Times' blanket refusal to review his books after 'The City and the Pillar'). He worked in Hollywood ('Ben-Hur'), television, the theatre (two hits - 'Visit from a Small Planet' and 'The Best Man'), and wrote pulp detective fiction under the pen name Edgar Box. Surprising, then, that he didn't pen any short stories in that era for the many magazines. Our loss.

Gore Vidal, our underrated man of letters
It seems that Gore Vidal never quite gets the attention he deserves. His is one of the sharpest and freshest intellects around, and his writing is as good as one might expect from that description. It is only his essays, however, that seem to get much attention, but I contend that his novels, and this--his only collection of short stories--deserve, no, demand equal attention. Each story in here is well done and a pleasure to read; they are also stimulating to the mind. How often do I have the pleasure of saying I loved every short story in a single collection? It is a rare experience, I assure you. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Vidal triumphs with "Empire"
Vidal, excellently uses the medium of historical fiction to skillfully craft his view of American Society at the turn of the century (and perhaps with further reaching implications). Centering around the life of Caroline Sanford-the descendant of Aaron Burr-a soon to be wealthy heiress. Sanford, along with her half-brother Blaise become fascniated with the publishing industry, and both become newspaper owners. On a higher plane, the novel deals with the complex interaction between the historical movers and shakers of the time: McKinley, Roosevelt, Willian Randolph Hearst, and Secretary of State John Hay. The book forces one to think about issues prevalent in society today, and who really does create everyday events. ... Read more

Book Description
Novelist, television personality, political candidate, and maverick social commentator, Gore Vidal is one of the most innovative, influential, and enduring American intellectuals of the past fifty years. In How to Be an Intellectual in the Age of TV, Marcie Frank provides a concise introduction to Vidal’s life and work as she argues that the twentieth-century shift from print to electronic media, particularly TV and film, has not only loomed large in Vidal’s thought but also structured his career. Looking at Vidal’s prolific literary output, Frank shows how he has reflected explicitly on this subject at every turn: in essays on politics, his book on Hollywood and history, his reviews and interviews, and topical excursions within the novels. At the same time, she traces how he has repeatedly crossed the line supposedly separating print and electronic culture, perhaps with more success than any other American intellectual. He has written television serials and screenplays, appeared in movies, and regularly appeared on television, most famously in heated arguments with Norman Mailer on The Dick Cavett Show and with William F. Buckley during ABC’s coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Frank highlights the connections between Vidal’s attitudes toward TV, sex, and American politics as they have informed his literary and political writings and screen appearances. She deftly situates his public persona in relation to those of Andy Warhol, Jacqueline Susann, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, and others. By describing Vidal’s shrewd maneuvering between different media, Frank suggests that his career offers a model to aspiring public intellectuals and a refutation to those who argue that electronic media have eviscerated public discourse.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mediations of the Public Intellectual
This is an accessible and illuminating study of one of the twentieth century's unique public intellectuals. Though the book weighs in at only 141pp. of text, the breadth of Frank's research on Vidal is impressive. She is a bonafide fan and writes with a sense of analytical purpose and critical appreciation.

Frank covers all the significant events in Vidal's long and varied career as a public intellectual and postmodern celebrity. Thankfully, she doesn't rehearse these events in chronological order; the book is not Vidal's biography. Rather, Frank organizes her material around thematic questions of public intellectualism and mass mediation as they bear on the construction of Vidal's intellectual cachet. Her basic claim is that Vidal, unlike many of his intellectual equals of his generation, welcomed the opportunity to extend his celebrity from page to screen, from the exclusivity of the publishing world to the networked immediacy of television.

Frank elaborates on her thesis in a number of contexts and with a handful of illustrative examples. Her reading of Vidal's heated televised debate with William F. Buckley at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago is particularly astute. My only reservation about Frank's analysis is that she doesn't do enough with the conceptual intervention she terms the "print-screen circuit." Frank does well to talk about Vidal's publishing output as well as his big- and small-screen appearances, but she leaves unexamined the specifically *dialectical* character of their relationship. Tracing the interaction of text with image and image with text in the life of the public intellectual might have given readers a better idea of Vidal's unique positioning between/across media. ... Read more

Book Description

An entertaining, insightful history of the men who've held the office, from the division between Jefferson and Hamilton through Bill Clinton's campaign for national health care.

Customer Reviews (12)

Total waste
This book is comprised of meaningless antecdotes and other useless information. I usually am incredibly impressed by Vidals wit and his ability to expose the "truth," but unfortunately, this time I was very disappointed.

Unforgiving, to the point, and funny
The book/pamphlet is unusual.It is quick reading and very amusing and funny.It does not try to be completely historically detailed and is not written in the scholarly style but rather goes through the key American presidents in order and gives a brief description of their character, accomplishments, and the problems they faced/solved/created.

In my opinion, Gore Vidal can be considered an elite insider of the US system.He pretty much writes as one blatantly and I believe he is making a point: here is someone on the inside who knows many of the presidents, politicians, the rich, and the media editors and is presenting history through such a perspective and in such a mode.He is a traditional republican and conservative (in the original sense of these words, hence the lower case use): foreign adventures/interventions, domestic political repression, economic polarization, and increasing corporate control are things he speaks against vehemently.For these reasons, this is a very refreshing book to read.

In addition, the book raises and deals with important questions about the presidency as an institution: what are its limitations and powers? How did this historically lead to its use and abuse for particular ends by various characters?What types of people were the various presidents and how did they change this institution?

Finally, Gore Vidal sees the US in the process of a slow but steady downfall, particularly since the Cold War years (1950s): politically, culturally, and economically (since the 1980s).The costs of being imperial master, with attendant crushing stifling of dissent at home, the huge military spendings and deficits, and foreign interventions and the loss of foreign and US life in the process, etc. are reviewed quite negatively in this book.Whether you believe this or not is something else, and the facts he produces are suggestive only (but then again,
the book is quite short).

In short, I recommend the book.As long as read properly, it provides quite some insight into American history.If you're looking for detailed history, facts and figures, and precise arguments, go elsewhere.If you're looking for a quick overall and consistent viewpoint and history viewed in broad burshstrokes, this book really hits the spot.

Entertaining, but ultimately disappointing
I have been a fan of Gore Vidal's for a very long time, so very few of his views on American presidents listed in this book are really new. But it is interesting to see them collected in one single volume and without the subtlety of earlier writings. Thus Vidal says plainly that presidents are either military dictators (Lincoln and FDR) or servants of Big Business. Truman and Eisenhower never considered the Soviet Union any real threat but invented the Cold War to please the military-industrial complex - a game that JFK, a cynical in everything else, believed in and wanted to win, almost causing World War III. And the Clintons are, of course, naïve idealists who never had any idea of how the US works until they tried to defy Corporate America with their health care plan which would have brought happiness to all. And so on and so forth.

Of course one should not accept at face value the conventional version of any country's history - not only the United States'. Vidal's historical novels, especially "Burr", are excellent in pointing that out. But although "The American Presidency" is useful as a readable and entertaining summary of American history which does sometimes make you think, it is also extremely simplistic - almost a caricature of Vidal's early writings on that subject. It made me sad, in a way.

It's that time again
What better book to get us ready for the onslaught of lies, distortions, and manufactured history, that is sure to flow as this year's presidentialelection draws near. In this brief introduction (thats why I only gave it 4stars, it would have been better if it were a little more detailed) toAmerica's number one sacred cow, the presidency, Gore Vidal ( A distantrelative to Al Gore)gives us a much needed dose of reality, as unsavory asthat may be. This book is based upon a British television documentary thatVidal created, which was sold to The History Channel. What happened next isa sad commentary on the American Media, and its willingness to censordissenting views. Instaed of cancelling this documentary, they insteaddecided to have the "hosts" dispute practically every point in anobvious attempt to discredit it. Of course, the corporations that own theHistory channel, and have benefited most from the corruption that Vidal'sbook exposes are the real culprits in this case, exposing a problem thatgoes much deeper than just media bias. As Vidal says, this book is not onlyabout the Presidency, it is about control; not only of what we as citizensare allowed to see and form our own opions of, but also what we canexpress. Presidents are not gods, even though they tend to act like theyare. The important thing that this book tells us is that all people shouldbe held accountible to the same laws, and this does not just start withClinton. It has dated back to our earliest leaders, men who proudly ownedslaves, declared unjust wars, supported terrorism, and ordered bombings ofinnocent civilians. We must see these men for who they are, not as thegod-like figures on Mt. Rushmore, or the granite and marble of Washington,but as the criminals that many of them were.

Excellencecondensed
Gore Vidal, a boy genius, once again proves himself to be not only a brilliant historian but also an exquisite story teller.Short and to the point, Vidal's AMERICAN PRESIDENCY, sums up the most sought after office inthe land (to be head of the White House T.V. studio.) Sharply sardonic andcompletely unforgiving, Vidal shines in this easy to read/comprehend novelfilling the pages with knowledge many refuse to believe.The work shouldbe a must read for any sort of American history student. ... Read more

Book Description
"A wild spoof of absolutely everything: social pretenses, law enforcement, marriage, open marriage, racism, literature, television, science fiction, and sex. Dozens of plots perk along at an amazing pace . . . . raunchy, dirty, outrageous, rife with cliches -- and often very funny." -- People
"One of the most brilliant, most radical, and most subversive pieces of writing to emerge from America in recent years." -- The New Statesman
"Vidal belongs to that group of writers of our time who, precisely because they have always kept their eyes open to the disorders and distortions of our age, have chosen irony, humor, comedy -- in other words, the whole range of literary instruments belonging to the universe of the laugh -- as their means of settling accounts." -- Italo Calvino ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

The emporor makes fun of himself for being naked?
While the book is funny and drew my interest in what would happpen, it was ultimately sterile and uninvolving. Quite a disappointment from the author of two of my favorites, "Julian" and "Creation". I get that it is (among other things) a satire on the dry, lifeless, oh too clever world of Post-Modernism. This still does not redeem it from being dry, lifeless, or oh too clever. Granted it archly satirizes much of what is wrong in modern American life, but that only gets you so much credit.

Hilarious, Perverse,Incorrigible, and a Great Read!
Who else but Gore Vidal can write great historical novels, contemporary essays, and some of the most subversive and hilarious "Comic Novels" out there? He deserves the Nobel Prize, but is too good for it! Anyway, here is a very tall tale about some politicos, police officers, Aztec terrorists in the barricades, and some of the most hilarious comments on 20th century US pseudo-culture you'll ever read. Throw in some real sci-fi with some strange aliens stuck inside some swampland, with multiple US Presidents, and some truly bizarre imaginings, and you have a can't- miss oddball novel that could only be cooked up by a mind like that of the great Gore Vidal!

Caustic...dizzying...hilarious.... Brilliant
There is a tremendous amount of violence in this book; the kind of subversively funny violence that makes it a bridge from the violence of Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 1940s to Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION and KILL BILL today.And that violence, profoundly enough, like its antecedents and descendents, is not in the plot; it's in the construction, deconstruction and delivery of each line in the novel as a whole.It is that kind of violence that is subversive enough in how it is delivered, in terms of context and irony, that makes this book so important, and, ulitmately, hilarious.

Only someone as well associated with the barbaric hypocrisy of the bourgeousie in American society like the Master Gore Vidal could write a book that reveals it to such maddening detail with such incredible humor.And yet, like an ADD child gone too long without his pills or a self-loathing genius comedian riffing while high on drugs, Vidal refuses to stop there. He begins to contemptuously deconstruct the very art form that is the novel to rip from it the very selfsame pretensions of artistic superiority inherent in it via its destruction--as it has existed for mainly the middle to upper middle classes in the first place.He makes his point that the novel is essentially dead, replaced with movies and the television hour drama as a vehicle for storytelling in the modern world; yet he does it while going off Hollywood television culture, in the context of his many stories.He even goes off on the very self-conscious postmodernistic style of novel writing after Pynchon, while staying true to the character and story development of about six or seven different absurd plots that form the bedrock of this sick but oh so American town named Duluth.Imagine a small, racist, politically corrupt town in the mid West with UFOs, Aztec terrorists who speak like Shakespearean heroes when their Spanish colloquialisms are translated, and people who, when they die, get reincarnated into characters on a television soap opera made about the town itself...and you have about HALF of what is going on in this incredibly silly and profoundly beautiful novel.

Gore Vidal is to Mark Twain what John Coltrane is to Charlie Parker.Read this novel, and see what I mean.Brilliant.

weak beer
To judge by one of his responses to the Proust Questionnaire published in Vanity Fair, Vidal considers this peculiar little volume his chef-d'oeuvre. One can only assume this is another example of the well-documented phenomenon of a parent reserving his fiercest love for his sickliest child.

Although written in the nondemanding (for authors and readers alike) turn-the-squares'-cliches-against-them style of his celebrated poleminc-cum-sex-comedy "Myra Breckenridge", "Duluth" generally fails to sting or tittilate. Consider this representative (you'll have to take my word for it) sample of the book's approach, taken from its opening pages:

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"I believe, Edna, that a Negro is being lynched."

"You'll love Duluth. I can tell." Edna revs up her jalopy's motor. "We have excellent race relations here, as you can see. And numerous nouvelle cuisine restaurants."

------------

Oh, that vile bourgeois complacency! I can just picture Vidal's Washington-elite nostrils twitching with contempt as he composes at the writing desk in his palazzo in Ravello, Italy. Only one can't help but wonder: is it racism that excites his disgust or just the stench of the middle class?

A book to be read
This book is Ha-Ha funny and Hmmmm interesting all at the same time.It is a satire, among many other things.Read it and read it again, and then once more, then put it aside for a few years, then read it again.You'llthank yourself for doing so. ... Read more

Product Description
Deftly controlled undertones of scandal and sex,,,, skillful flashes of wit and irony,,, ... Read more

Book Description
When Gore Vidal's frank description of homosexual life, The City and the Pillar, was first published in 1948, the reaction was both unexpected and shocking. Republished now in hardcover with a new introduction by the author, this classic is being featured with seven of Vidal's early stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What a deal for just a couple bucks!
This edition is a steal for what it offers, and at such a modest price! (I am not sure why Amazon describes this is "Hardcover". The edition I ordered here from a third party vendor was soft cover and inexpensive.)

Gore's better 1960s revision of "The City and the Pillar" is an trip into the gay underworld of 1940s America, and Gore's seven early stories are an added treat--each are quality and interesting in their own way. This is not the best Gore ever wrote, but it is a quick read and not very demanding--just perfect if you like short stories and novellas, as I do. I can only wish Gore had continued writing in this form in addition to his many novels.

Dark and disturbing
Having read this book immediately after Ethan Mordden's "How Long Has This Been Going On?" this book provided a more intense view of the gay underground in the late-40's and early 50's.Not only intriguing for gay readers, but for anyone whose illusions have been shattered in an endless pursuit of an ideal.

Should be required reading at all high schools.
The story takes you into the world that Keroak prefered to omit in 'On the Road'.Vidal is daring and honest.Had I read this when I was 18, my life would have been very different. ... Read more