They represent the drama of the private face perpetually laughing at, and through, the public one. As Stephen Spender wrote in a review, "Vidal's essays celebrate the triumphs of private values over the public ones of power. In 1993, his volume United States: Essays, 1951-91, received the National Book award. Often published first in such journals as the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement, they were collected at regular intervals between the novels. But Vidal never looked back.ĭespite his output as a novelist and playwright, many critics considered Vidal's witty and acerbic essays his best work. After 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, he returned to centre stage with a series of blistering pamphlets and public pronouncements that led many, including his former friend Christopher Hitchens, to pounce on him. His public career spanned seven decades and included 25 novels, numerous collections of essays on literature and politics, a volume of short stories, five Broadway plays, dozens of television plays and film scripts, and even three mystery novels written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. Gore Vidal, the American writer, controversialist and politician manqué, who has died aged 86, was celebrated both for his caustic wit and his mandarin's poise.
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