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Empire of self : a life of Gore Vidal / Jay Parini.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Doubleday, [2015]Edition: First editionDescription: xii, 464 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780385537568 (hardback)
  • 0385537565 (hardback)
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Introduction. Rock Creek ramble -- A silver-plated mug -- Capitol steps -- A wider world -- Truman and Gore at the Plaza -- Not a lovely war -- Two roads diverging -- Storm at sea -- Hearts of darkness -- Edgewater recalled -- Portrait of the artist as Balletomane -- Pillars of salt -- Stateside -- More dolce vita -- Finding Dutchess County -- Loving Howard -- Beverly Hills blues -- Detecting life -- The Spanish main -- Media as messages -- Silvery screens -- More visits to small planets -- Outlaws -- Ben-Hur -- A place at the round table -- At the Water's edge - Hyannis -- "You'll get more with Gore" -- Slouching towards Camelot -- Essaying the world -- Roman spring -- Julian rising -- Moravia and Gore on the Isola Tiberna -- Romanitas -- Capitol steps revisited -- The holy family -- Myra -- Busy weekends -- The Vidal-Buckley debates -- Furious visions -- Miss Sontag writes a novel -- A bad year -- Writing Richard Nixon -- Italian hours -- Patriotic Gore -- The swirl -- Myron unmanned -- The man who wouldn't fall to earth -- Half a century -- 1876 and all that -- Memories, dreams, self-reflections -- Apocalypse not quite yet -- Hollywood redux -- Grace and hope -- Gore and Isaiah Berlin in Oxford -- Acting president -- Running in place -- Duluth : love it or loathe it -- Honorary citizen -- Land of Lincoln -- Ah, Venice! -- The lesson of the master -- "It's a trade" -- "One disaster after another" -- Fear of flying -- Imperium -- Sailing the coast -- Adding wings to the mansion -- Lenny and gore -- "Our country's biographer" -- "The other side of the camera" -- Attacking the sky-God -- Thinking about sex -- Retreats, advances -- In the widening gyre -- At the Harvard Faculty Club -- Rethinking Washington -- Dreams of wholeness -- Elder statesman -- Reviewing the life -- The golden age -- Still the best man -- Songs in the Hollywood Hills -- The pamphleteer -- Finding founding fathers -- A death before bedtime -- Marching to the sea -- The last memoir -- Mopping-up operations -- Snapshots of the end -- Conclusion -- Postscript.
Summary: "The life of Gore Vidal was an amazingly full one: full of colorful incident, famous people, and lasting achievements that calls out for careful evocation and examination. Jay Parini crafts Vidal's life into [a] ... story that puts the experience of one of the great American figures of the postwar era into context; introduces the author and his works to a generation who may not know him; and looks behind the scenes at the man and his work in ways never possible before his death"--Amazon.com.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography Vidal, G. P231 Available 33111008092930
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An intimate, authorized yet totally frank biography of Gore Vidal (1925-2012), one of the most accomplished, visible, and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century


The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self digs behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful career to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truths underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well--a virtual Who's Who of the twentieth century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Johnny Carson, Leonard Bernstein, and the cr#65533;me de la cr#65533;me of Hollywood. Also a generous helping of feuds with the likes of William F. Buckley, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, and The New York Times , among other adversaries.
The life of Gore Vidal teemed with notable incidents, famous people, and lasting achievements that call out for careful evocation and examination. Jay Parini crafts Vidal's life into an accessible, entertaining story that puts the experience of one of the great American figures of the postwar era into context, introduces the author and his works to a generation who may not know him, and looks behind the scenes at the man and his work in ways never possible before his death. Provided with unique access to Vidal's life and his papers, Parini excavates many buried skeletons yet never loses sight of his deep respect for Vidal and his astounding gifts. This is the biography Gore Vidal--novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, historian, wit, provocateur, and pioneer of gay rights--has long needed.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. Rock Creek ramble -- A silver-plated mug -- Capitol steps -- A wider world -- Truman and Gore at the Plaza -- Not a lovely war -- Two roads diverging -- Storm at sea -- Hearts of darkness -- Edgewater recalled -- Portrait of the artist as Balletomane -- Pillars of salt -- Stateside -- More dolce vita -- Finding Dutchess County -- Loving Howard -- Beverly Hills blues -- Detecting life -- The Spanish main -- Media as messages -- Silvery screens -- More visits to small planets -- Outlaws -- Ben-Hur -- A place at the round table -- At the Water's edge - Hyannis -- "You'll get more with Gore" -- Slouching towards Camelot -- Essaying the world -- Roman spring -- Julian rising -- Moravia and Gore on the Isola Tiberna -- Romanitas -- Capitol steps revisited -- The holy family -- Myra -- Busy weekends -- The Vidal-Buckley debates -- Furious visions -- Miss Sontag writes a novel -- A bad year -- Writing Richard Nixon -- Italian hours -- Patriotic Gore -- The swirl -- Myron unmanned -- The man who wouldn't fall to earth -- Half a century -- 1876 and all that -- Memories, dreams, self-reflections -- Apocalypse not quite yet -- Hollywood redux -- Grace and hope -- Gore and Isaiah Berlin in Oxford -- Acting president -- Running in place -- Duluth : love it or loathe it -- Honorary citizen -- Land of Lincoln -- Ah, Venice! -- The lesson of the master -- "It's a trade" -- "One disaster after another" -- Fear of flying -- Imperium -- Sailing the coast -- Adding wings to the mansion -- Lenny and gore -- "Our country's biographer" -- "The other side of the camera" -- Attacking the sky-God -- Thinking about sex -- Retreats, advances -- In the widening gyre -- At the Harvard Faculty Club -- Rethinking Washington -- Dreams of wholeness -- Elder statesman -- Reviewing the life -- The golden age -- Still the best man -- Songs in the Hollywood Hills -- The pamphleteer -- Finding founding fathers -- A death before bedtime -- Marching to the sea -- The last memoir -- Mopping-up operations -- Snapshots of the end -- Conclusion -- Postscript.

"The life of Gore Vidal was an amazingly full one: full of colorful incident, famous people, and lasting achievements that calls out for careful evocation and examination. Jay Parini crafts Vidal's life into [a] ... story that puts the experience of one of the great American figures of the postwar era into context; introduces the author and his works to a generation who may not know him; and looks behind the scenes at the man and his work in ways never possible before his death"--Amazon.com.

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