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GORE VIDAL BACKGROUND
by Linda Sutton, ©2006

For more than 60 years, Gore Vidal has written about America and put its history under his critical scrutiny. In novels, scripts, screenplays and essays, he is one of the most prolific authors in the 20th, and now 21st centuries. At 80, he continues in what seems to be a final quest to warn Americans about what has happened to their government.

His most recent books, that he calls "pamphlets" include:

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace or How We Came to Be So Hated, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, and Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia ---- all highly critical of American foreign policy. Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, which he calls his "little book for John F. Kennedy," takes readers back to the founding fathers to answer JFK's question of how a little backwoods country could produce the three geniuses of that century. In this, he recounts Benjamin Franklin's belief that the Constitution was flawed and would eventually fail, as he explained continuously during this interview.

Born in a family with deep roots in politics for many generations, Gore's youth was often spent with his grandfather, Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma who took him along into the Senate where he watched Huey Long and other senators of the day. Senator Gore was blind and often relied on his young grandson to read to him. Later, he took the last name of his grandfather to be his first name.

After graduating from Exeter at 17, Gore Vidal enlisted in the army during World War II and was sent to the Aleutian Islands. It was while on board ship that he began his first novel, Williwaw, which he finished while recuperating from frostbite and arthritis in Birmingham Hospital in the San Fernando Valley. This hospital later became Birmingham High School, mentioned earlier in this interview.

This first novel was acclaimed as an extraordinary achievement for one so young. Several less successful followed until The City and the Pillar, the story of a young homosexual, in 1948. Too much of a shock for post-war America, the New York Times critic refused to read or review his next books, so he wrote using pseudonyms to survive economically. During this time, he also wrote scripts and screenplays.

After two major best sellers, Washington DC and Julian, he returned to sexual themes with Myra Breckenridge, a gender satire about a female transsexual. With this and, later, Myron, Gore put the literary world on notice that he would deal with sexual topics on his own terms whenever he chose.

His greatest success has been as a master political historian. Novels, yes, officially, because he inserts his own characters among the historical figures to comment and move the story along. But as Gore describes them, "When I write history, I write history."

And so he has. The American Chronicles. First Washington D.C., telling about the WWII era that he directly experienced, knowing the Roosevelts and many of the major players personally. Then Burr. With these framing the time period, he proceeded to write about the intervening years with Lincoln, 1876, Empire, and Hollywood. The Golden Age, ending at the millennium, is the final book of this series. Most became best sellers, as did his books on ancient times, Creation and Julian.

A complete list of all of his works is available on line. His most recent is Point to Point Navigation, the second half of his memoirs.

Gore Vidal now lives in his 1920's era home in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. Having spent a great deal of time in Italy, he recently sold his villa in Ravello after knee surgery left him unable to walk well enough to go down the long steps to the piazza that he so loved. We are fortunate to have him here now as he speaks at many local events bringing his sharp tongue to bear on the current administration and the destruction it has caused to our constitution and civil liberties.

I'm Linda Sutton, and this is the first in a series of conversations on education.