Empire of Self

August 10, 2015
Acclaimed biographer Parini (Robert Frost: A Life) draws on his 30 years of friendship and conversation with Gore Vidal (1925–2012), as well as on deep archival research, to offer a simultaneously admiring and candid portrait. With an elegance worthy of Vidal himself, Parini gracefully chronicles Vidal’s life from his childhood (he lived in a world of fantasies shaped by the movies he saw to escape his parents’ constant fighting and eventual divorce) and teenage years (he was a poor student, but always felt the siren song of writing) to the publication of his first novel, Williwaw, in 1946, and his struggles with and eventual acceptance of his homosexuality. As famous for his friends as for his writing, Vidal rubbed shoulders with Eleanor Roosevelt and John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and feuded with William F. Buckley and Norman Mailer. Parini nimbly explores Vidal’s fiction—from the controversial Myra Breckinridge to the historical novels Lincoln, Burr, and Julian—and nonfiction, such as Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson. Vidal emerges as a brave and provocative political observer, yet a shy man, who, as Parini observes, wore the “elaborately contrived mask of Gore Vidal.” Parini’s access to Vidal and his thoughtful reflections on him establish this as the definitive biography of a major writer. Agent: Geri Thoma, Writers House.

Starred review from August 1, 2015
An intimate but unblinking look at Gore Vidal (1925-2012), the gifted essayist, playwright, novelist, and public personality, who, for a time, seemed ubiquitous in the popular culture. Poet, novelist, and biographer Parini (English/Middlebury Coll.; Jesus: The Human Face of God, 2013, etc.) met his subject in the mid-1980s, and he begins his chronicle with that encounter. They became fast friends as well as professional colleagues, though Parini continually reminds readers of Vidal's often difficult personality. Petty, jealous, judgmental, and imperious-all applied to him. But so do others, as the author ably shows: Vidal was generous, brilliant, assiduous, and innovative. Like many other fine artists, Vidal worked until he could no longer do so. Parini precedes each chapter with a vignette, a focused memory from his own experiences with Vidal. They range from amusing to deeply moving. Parini is a wise general biographer of a literary figure. He tells us about each of Vidal's major works (and the major reviews thereof) but never in prose choked with jargon or self-importance. The goals are exposition and elucidation, and he achieves them gracefully. Like other critics, Parini believes Vidal's essays surpassed his other work. We learn some quirky details about the writer, as well-his fascination with Billy the Kid (and, later, with Timothy McVeigh), his fondness for celebrities of all sorts, his discomfort with academics, and his rivalries with Norman Mailer (with whom he reconciled) and William F. Buckley Jr. (with whom he didn't). There is also a lot about Vidal's sexuality (he preferred anonymous sex with male partners) and his drinking problems. Finally, the author examines Vidal's sad decline and death. Parini uses detail in agile, unobtrusive fashion-though he erroneously reports that John Brown was killed at Harpers Ferry (he was hanged later in Charles Town). A superbly personal biography that pulsates with intelligence, scholarship, and heart.

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Starred review from August 1, 2015
From the outset of this major life story of American novelist and essayist Gore Vidal, Parini, highly regarded novelist, poet, and biographer (John Steinbeck, 1995; Robert Frost, 1999), does not hide his friendship with the great and greatly provocative and ever-difficult Vidal. That means, too, that he does not disguise his exasperation and even annoyance with Vidal while at the same time appreciating his writerly accomplishments.The outstanding qualityno, just one of the outstanding qualitiesof this tour de force of effective biography is the dexterity, the balance with which Parini handles the two acute sides of his subject, Vidal the angel and Vidal the monster. Gore had an arrangement with critic Walter Clemons to write a biography, giving Clemons the access that that assignment would require; but Clemons could not fulfill the obligation, and Vidal then asked his friend Parini to step in. Acknowledging that Vidal's flame was very bright and warm, and I was drawn to it, Parini spent considerable time, energy, and expense as he followed Vidal all over the world. But understanding that Vidal's intense narcissism would create problems for Parini's freedom to be objective, he decided then to write a book that could only be published after Vidal's death, a frank yet fond look at a man I admired, even loved, and who had preoccupied me for such a long time. Now, make no mistake; the resultant book is by no means a trash job. As Parini says, it's not a memoir of friendship, . . . It's the story of Gore Vidal's extraordinary life and writing. It is a book of greatly astute literary understanding, prepared with a vitality that perfectly suits Vidal's fast-paced, vivid life. (But lest anyone believe he was a lightweight writer of a less-than-serious level, what comes to the fore in this book is Gore's dedication to writing, which he spent hours at every day, no matter where he happened to be hanging his hat, which eventually became Rome for a number of years and then a villa on Italy's Amalfi Coast.) In his intense but always buoyant narrative, which brings us rich detail about Vidal's personal life (including a sensitive portrait of Vidal's longtime and often-suffering companion, Howard Austen), Parini examines and extols Vidal's work in three major areas: the political novel, which Vidal saw taking the form of family sagas (his American Chronicle series is remarkably intelligent and absorbing); the biographical novel, a form which Vidal redefined, shaping its texture and direction and exemplified by Lincoln (1994), which was part of the American Chronicle series but an eminent solo performance in its own right; and the essay, which Parini posits contains his central work. With no judgement or prurience, Parini lends Vidal's sexuality its full and undisguised freedom in these pages; a handsome man, Vidal had no problems attracting male lovers, especially in Italy, where he found the young men exceptionally beautiful.His television appearancesnotably his debates with William F. Buckley during the 1968 presidential electioncapped the fame he so desired, and his death in 2012 left Parini feeling that the American scene is poorer without him. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This will be regarded as one of the major biographies of the season, and librarians should be prepared.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2015

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) burst onto the literary scene with his controversial novel about homosexuality, The City and the Pillar (1948). Parini (D.E. Axinn Professor of English & Creative Writing, Middlebury Coll.; Jesus; The Last Station) draws on 30 years of friendship with Vidal to address both his attractions and failings. Over six decades, Vidal produced some 80 books, including 30 novels, 25 books of essays (in Parini's judgment, his finest work), and 22 plays and film scripts. He was a fixture on television, acted in movies, ran for public office (twice), and engaged in nasty public feuds with Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and William Buckley. Vidal was a man of contradictions: a good friend but vicious in attacking those he deemed enemies (some of them friends until shortly before); a conscientious writer who weakened what he wrote by slapdash methods; a libertine who only cruised in the afternoon so his evenings were free for conversation. Vidal lived as though in front of a looking glass, never satisfied with what he saw there. VERDICT It's difficult to paint an appealing picture of a narcissist, but Parini has produced a balanced account of a man of immense talent who sometimes used it wisely and other times didn't. Lively and insightful, this book should find favor among lovers of literature and biography. It's got heart. [See Prepub Alert, 5/4/15.]--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2015

Middlebury College professor Parini is a celebrated biographer (e.g., Robert Frost) with a welcome touch of the novelist/poet; his fiction includes The Last Station, basis of the Academy Award-nominated film. But he was also a friend of Gore Vidal for 30 years, so he brings personal insight to this biography as well as the forthrightness allowed when the subject is deceased. Look for the serialization on the blog-publishing platform Medium.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.