Customer Reviews (1)

Gore Vidal writing as Edgar Box - lots of fun.
Three books.Three murders.Three times to skewer the upper crust worlds of the arts, politics and high society.Vidal's talent is everywhere in evidence.Each volume abounds with wit and sophistication.The mysteries are densely and cleverly plotted, full of murder, sex and malicious good humor.

Peter Cutler Sargeant is a New York City publicity man.An observer and exploiter of the rich and powerful.Sargeant, smarter than any cop, plays every angle to expose the pretentious and corrupt.Great, good fun, from a master storyteller, these three shouldn't be missed. ... Read more

Product Description
Although he's one of America's most admired and prolific writers, Gore Vidal has been steadfastly ignored by many critics. His radical polemics and undisguised contempt have hardly endeared him to the critical establishment. Now comes the first collection of critical essays on this important American writer. Includes an interview with Vidal. ... Read more

Product Description
Celebrated for more than fifty years as a world-renowned novelist, essayist, and political figure and commentator, Gore Vidal is less known for the exquisitely crafted short fiction he wrote as a young man. Like the work of Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, his stories have been overshadowed by his triumphs writing in other genres.

Vidal’s short fiction offers us a portrait of the young artist in the 1940s and 1950s. His subtle and comic tales often center on adolescence and homosexual themes. In Three Stratagems, a middle-aged gay man encounters a male prostitute while vacationing in Key West. In The Zenner Trophy, the star athlete at an elite boys school is expelled for sexual relations with a classmate. These stories were gathered along with five others into a 1956 volume, A Thirsty Evil, and for decades were thought to comprise Vidal’s complete short fiction. However, an eighth story was recently discovered among Vidal’s private papers at Harvard University. Entitled Clouds and Eclipses, the story is based on a true account from the childhood of Tennessee Williams. Taking its name from that lost story, this collection brings Vidal’s body of short fiction to completion for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Uneven
I enjoyed the short preface very much, but the stories were of uneven quality. "Erlinda and Mr. Coffin" is exotic, fun,and while some social observations are made, it is a story written for the pleasure of spinning a tale. "Pages from an Abandoned Journal" is interesting and offers some insight into the lifestyle of a segment of the gay population."Clounds and Eclipses", the hitherto unpublished story based on a childhood recollection of Tennessee Williams, is without merit, and the first story of the collection should be skipped. ... Read more

Product Description
Hollywood marks the fifth episode in Gore Vidal's "Narratives of Empire," his celebrated series of six historical novels that form his extended biography of the United States.
        It is 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson is about to lead the country into the Great War in Europe. In California, a new industry is born that will irreversibly transform America. Caroline Sanford, the alluring heroine of Empire, discovers the power of moving pictures to manipulate reality as she vaults to screen stardom under the name of Emma Traxler. Just as Caroline must balance her two lives--West Coast movie star and East Coast newspaper publisher and senator's mistress--so too must America balance its two power centers: Hollywood and Washington.                         Here is history as only Gore Vidal can re-create it: brimming with intrigue and scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen and American politics.
        "Hollywood shimmers with the illusion of politics and the politics of illusion," wrote the Chicago Sun-Times. "A wonderfully literate and consistently impressive work of fiction that clearly belongs on a shelf with Vidal's best," said The New York Times Book Review.
        With a new Introduction by the author.Amazon.com Review
Who could possibly resist a novel that begins as WilliamRandolph Hearst falls on his behind? The fifth novel in Gore Vidal'sNarratives of Empire sequence (sixth, however, in order ofpublication) begins on the eve of American involvement in the FirstWorld War and ends shortly after the mysterious death of WarrenG. Harding and ascension of the taciturn Calvin Coolidge to thepresidency. Balanced against Gore's descriptions of all thesepolitical machinations is the story of newspaper publisher CarolineSanford's foray into film acting, which places her in proximity to thescandals involving Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and William DesmondTaylor. The cast of characters includes a young Franklin DelanoRoosevelt--and his mistress, Lucy Mercer--and Vidal's maternalgrandfather, Senator T.P. Gore. As always, the proceedings areenlivened by Vidal's caustic wit. --Ron Hogan ... Read more

Product Description
From Mary Rowlandson's story of her capture by Indians inthe mid-seventeenth century to Mary Paik Lee's story of being a pioneerKorean woman in America at the beginning of the twentieth century, theautobiographical form has provided our most vivid, intimate glimpses ofdaily American life and self-understanding. In this groundbreakinganthology, respected writer and critic Jay Parini brings together anabundant selection from over three centuries of "the democratic voice . .. discovering itself." Here are the voices of the Founding Fathers andAfrican American slaves; of transcendentalists and suffragists; ofancestors such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Mark Twain, HenryJames, Helen Keller, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, ErnestHemingway, James Baldwin, and many others; and of a wide range ofcontemporaries, including Maxine Hong Kingston, Gore Vidal, JuliaAlvarez, and Mark Doty. The rich, continuous influence ofautobiographical writing in our culture is clear, and as memoirs continueto fascinate readers, this invaluable anthology provides an essentialguide to our foremost American literary tradition.Amazon.com Review
Rounding up all the usual suspects (Benjamin Franklin to MaryKarr) as well as some once-popular authors now criminally neglected(Ulysses S. Grant, Lucy Larcom), editor Jay Parini has assembled 62entries that amply attest to both the diversity of Americanautobiography and its essential coherence. It's been a long two and ahalf centuries from the majestic, near-biblical cadences of JonathanEdwards's chronicle of his striving towards God to the intimate (somemight say whiny) tone in which Elizabeth Wurtzel examines hergeneration's reliance on friends to heal the wounds inflicted byfamily. But both of these writers and most of those in betweendelineate a very American process of self-discovery andenlightenment. Parini manages to represent most of the genre'simportant contributors: African Americans (including W.E.B. Du Boisand Malcolm X); women (from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Terry TempestWilliams); nature writers (Thoreau, of course, and Annie Dillard); andtoday's nothing-is-off-limits confessors (Caroline Knapp on booze,Paul Monette on AIDS). Those readers who are familiar with the booksfrom which most of these pieces are excerpted may find their brevityfrustrating, but Parini has gone for breadth rather thandepth. Consider this a collection of tasty hors d'oeuvres designed towhet individual readers' appetites for full-course offerings from thechefs they find most appealing. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great introduction to other worlds
I bought this book because I was interested in the autobiography. I had just finished reading a few "shorts" in different anthologies, and I decided to do a search to see if there was anything larger out there. I found The Norton Book of American Autobiography and was pleased. I just finished this massive 711 paged book, and I would recommend it to anyone who's just interested in other people's lives. There are some stand-out writers included (Malcolm X, Benjamin Franklin, etc.), but also some contemporary writers as well (Julia Alvarez, Caroline Knapp, Paul Monette, etc.). This is a great book to read on your own, but I can really see it benefiting a lit. class at the same time.

Autobiography as Literature
Autobiography isn't always just the blathering of B-list celebrities.Much of it is some of the finest American literature ever produced.Some say Americans are egotistical and self-involved.Well, fine, maybe so, butit makes for great autobiography.And the informative and literary lifesynopsi (synopsises?) make for great reading by themselves!!!Huzzah tothe editor and his minions!!! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

shocking for grandma but not for teen
After reading Myra Breckinridge I couldn't look at my passions with the same sort of satisfaction after being infused by Vidal's challenge to established normalcy.
He doesn't waste any time introducing us to his philosophical, dedicated diary-writing main character Myra Breckinridge.
Myra is a determined transsexual with an edge of determined power. Vidal draws Myra from the masses and sets her aside with an assumed background that stretches the bounds of possibility. This unconventional collection of presupposed events goes along with Vidal's overall intention to shock.
Vidal utilizes the personal setting of a diary to present his readers with a more complete understanding of the workings of an up-and-coming person living a lifestyle with freewill and self-asserted power.
Vidal's connections between shockingly different human lives and the commonplace suburban plain works well in this novel. He does not overlook the importance of love, acceptance, and stability to remain sane.
With these emotions included, the reader is allowed to remain attached with the character alongside a fascination with her seemingly educated obscenity. For this, Vidal can be commendable in his efforts.
As far as shock factor, this book is not for your grandma. Vidal himself admits Myra Breckinridge was "pretty far out" by the standards of the time, though these days, fairly mild.
However, you feel receptive after reading it and not only because the sex scenes are described with little reservations, but also because Myra forever remains informed and thus justifiably assertive.
The theories of power in all human existence are intertwined by the daily life of Myra that can be partially or wholly applied to any who read this fictional transgender's story.
"I existed totally" were Myra's words when referring to her own choice of lifestyle, but when this comment was written, Vidal was not done with her story.
Just as the rest of the book finds room to wander to and fro between acceptable and eccentric, the plot begins typical and predictable among its own established bounds but by the end you've been thrown a quick curveball. It either leaves you satisfied with the way it fits in with the personality of Myra, or causes you to assume the ideals you'd come to believe were unsound.
Either way Myra Breckinridge bestows literacy with a novel full of provoking premise to begin recognizing, by way of the extreme, that life does not have to begin and end with time-honored tradition but instead must follow more personal laws that recognize the supremacy of within.

I THINK I KNOW WHAT IT'S ABOUT
Confusing patchwork of letters, memos, grade reports, oddball documents...seems to suggest gender dysphoric teacher identifies with attractive young female student and wishes he were her,...so she will screwhim (?). An inheritance chase ensues, and he magically becomes the girl ofhis own dreams (beaverly played by Raquel Welch who convincingly screws ayoung Farrah Fawcett). But then what. As the new girl befreinds the girl heloves, she boldly tells "new girl", "I wish you were aguy". Fitting end to a slutty story! StarlaParis cautions,"Sometimes we don't know what we got 'til it's gone". ... 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

Product Description
Thanks to the latest breakthrough in computer software, a cyberpunk- known bleakly as The Hacker- is destroying the tapes that describe the mission of Jesus Christ and His Gospel or Good News. The Sacred Story is vanishing rapidly. Fortunately one tape is Hackerproof, that of Timothy, who in his youth, was Robin to Saint Paul's Batman. Now, in Timothy's old age, Saint Paul comes to him in a vision and begs him to write down the True Gospel, otherwise all is lost. And thanks to the wonders of modern techonology, a TV crew will pre-record, live from Golgotha, the Crucifixion in order to boost NBC during the upcoming ratings battle. Will it take place or not? Will the Hacker manage to destroy all the records, including Timothy's? Will Jesus's weight problem be an image problem in the light of today's high standards? Tune in to Gore Vidal's classic of the greatest story never told- until now. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

APPALLING
This book is a disgrace.My copy is going in the trash immediately.As a Christian, I don't want to keep at least this copy in the market.If it was possible to give zero stars I would do so.

Blasphemous and un-put-downable
Entirely blasphemous. Astonishingly simple. Entirely engaging and written in such a black vein of humour that you won't be able to help yourself. Questions the foundation of the Christian faith: can you ever remain certain that it was Christ who was nailed to that Cross having read this?
If you loved Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" you'll adore this book.

Brilliant idea drowning in American controversialism
The idea of the plot in »Live From Golgotha« is so simple it's genius: the battle about transmitting live from the crucifixion of Jesus. I wonder why nobody has got that idea before. That alone is enough to deserve onestar.

But the story itself does not deserve more than an additional twostars. It drowns in overexposed attempts to be controversial, in thetypical American way of wanting to provoke the authorities of moral.

Thisnovel is a mixture of the movies »Back To The Future« (I, II and III),»Life Of Brian« and »12 Monkeys« and the filmatization of »The LastTemptation Of Christ«. Gore Vidal has a lot of good ideas but he does notseem to tidy up in order to "kill his darlings" among them.However, Vidal's humour has a certain level, balancing on the thin linebetween Woody Allen'ism and blasphemy. (Being an atheist, I am not theright person to judge whether the author actually does step over the lineand into blasphemy).

But the story fades, in and out. Mostly out, towardsthe end of the book. Compared to the expectations you start with, knowingthe plot, it fades to disappointment.

So, reading »Live From Golgotha«,you get some good laughs, a few chills because of Vidal'sclose-to-blasphemy, from time to time some excitement about how the storyis going to develop... but in the end, closing the book, the feeling iskind of empty. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Life in Fiction and Non-
For a fictitious account of the Sarratt conspiracy of spies during the Civil War, Vidal had a lot to say.To call those poor, unworthy followers "Confederate spies" is going a bit "out in space."But as a whole that's what Vidal's over-long novels generall are.

Though Abraham Lincoln's high-pitched voice did not sound rhetorical, he was aware of the power of his meanderings as he tried to define the war aims.His well-thought-through address at Gettysburg spoke for the turmoil of that day and for future political rhetoric of our time.

Vidal names all of the major Confederate generals but has them as incidental characters.Talking to Sherman about the length of this crazy war, Lincoln is quoted by Vidal (putting words in his mouth and mind): "I am only a politician and we tend to say (and do) foolish things."A total of 170 Confederates were killed, more than 680 wounded and 770 missing.The Union losses were about 60 dead, 150 wounded and 40 missing.

This parody express the Confederate contempt for Northerners.Other verses describe the rebels whippingthe yankees at Manassas and Bull Run, mocking his taste for brandy.It became a caricature of all that was weak and unmanly about the Confederate foes and became a religious patriotism to the Southern cause. ... Read more

Product Description
Burr is the opening volume in Gore Vidal's great fictional chronicle of American history, each of which is being republished in the Modern Library .BurrAmazon.com Review
Charles Schuyler is a personal assistant to Aaron Burr, theformer Revolutionary War hero, vice president under Jefferson, and infamous slayer ofAlexander Hamilton. He's also been employed by a group of politicaloperatives in New York journalism circles to dig up evidence that Burris the "natural father," as the expression goes, of up-and-comingpresidential candidate Martin van Buren. Schuyler's journal entriesare a wondrous prose picture of Jacksonian society, while an imaginedautobiographical account from Burr provides a similar depiction of thenation's origins. Like all of Vidal's historical fiction, Burrhas little use for America's received iconography, and draws uponcontemporary sources to puncture the legendary reputations ofWashington and Jefferson. There are also marvelous cameo appearancesfrom figures like Washington Irving and Davy Crockett, of whomSchuyler notes, "He is considered a delightful figure. I can't thinkwhy." (There's also a substantial subplot in which Schuyler falls inlove with a prostitute named Helen Jewett; readers maybe interested to learn that she is, in fact, a real historicalfigure).--Ron Hogan ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Truer than fact alone
After 25 years I have just read this wonderful novel again - and regret having taken so long!One of the best American novels ever written: entertaining, erudite, passionate without being sentimental. This ishistory the way it ought to be told, with every blemish and wrinkle proudlydisplayed.Vidal folds his stories within each other with his usualconsummate skill, wit, intelligence.Most of all, a thorough devotion tothe subject of this country's background and how our historyreverberatestoday and throughout our confused culture.Second only to CREATION inVidal's panoply ofhistorical novels.Simply the best!

One of the most intelligent and interesting novels ever.
Burr is intelligent and insightful as well as fun and interesting.The book chronicles the life of the notorious Aaron Burr from his days as a soldier in the American Revolution to his term as Vice President and histreason trial.And it culminates in an thoughtful vision of the man'sremaining years.Vidal's book is brilliant and refreshing in itsportrayals of the founding fathers, particularly Burr, Hamilton, andWashington.A must read for anyone who loves fiction, history, and goodwriting.

The portrayel of the forgotten father
Burr, perhaps the most underrated and forgotten founding father of all time.Aaron Burr lived a life where there was a balance between two extremes.He would became the best of friends with one man and the worstof enemies with another and years later the roles were reversed.A man wholoved his country only to see it turn its back on him.A man exposed tothe incompetence of our nation's heroes doomed to live on in their shadow. This book made me believe that Van Buren was his son and also that thefamous duel was because of a slanderous remark Hamilton made. I believethis because it seems much more natural than any reason a history bookcould give.Burr was a great man, but he was not without his faults;nobody ever is, but for a man so misunderstood, it just doesn't seemfair.

Also, I have tremendous respect for Vidal's talent.After readinghis sidenote, it is obvious the man knows what he is doing.But not somuch is my respect for his research, than it is for his brilliant way ofconveying a belief even he himself does not hold.

Vidal said he was not aBurr supporter and that probably still holds true.But if the old boy werealive today-you can be bloody sure he would receive my vote.

Gore Vidal's book does much to vindicate an innocent man.
As an historian, I have always doubted the guilt of Aaron Burr whose greatest curse seems to have been his willingness to consider both sides of an issue. As a 'middle-of-the-roader' he was not much liked by persons withstronger opinions.If we recall how nearly Burr came to winning thepresidency from Jefferson, consider how his temperment at the time wasviewed, and note the support he received at his trial, and from whom, thereader ought to be left with questions which, as a reviewer with a legalbackground concluded, creates serious doubt as to Burr's purpose and guilt.Burr's Americanism is proved by the way he accepted what he knew waspolitical policy of the day; government condemned individuals rather thanaccept blame for filibustering schemes gone awry.

Entertaining from page 1 through the end
I couldn't put it down once I started reading! The portrayals ofWashington, Hamilton, Jackson, Jefferson, etc were wonderfully sarcastic& humerous.I've always wondered as Burr if the members of ContinentalCongress were such patriots why weren't they out with the troops gettingshot at. The founding fathers weren't 2 dimensional models of perfection. I adored Burr's character. His memoirs of his treason trial were especiallyentertaining. ... Read more