Palimpsest: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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Description

Vidal on Vidal - a great and supremely entertaining writer on a great and endlessly fascinating subject

Palimpsest is Gore Vidal's account of the first thirty-nine years of his life as a novelist, dramatist, critic, political activist and candidate, screenwriter, television commentator, controversialist, and a man who knew pretty much everybody worth knowing (from Amelia Earhart to Eleanor Roosevelt, the Duke and the Duchess of Windsor, Jack Kennedy, Jaqueline Kennedy, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote, Andre Gide, and Tennessee Williams, and on and on).

Here, recalled with the charm and razor wit of one of the great raconteurs of our time, are his birth into a DC political clan; his school days; his service in World War II; his emergence as a literary wunderkind in New York; his time in Hollywood, London, Paris and Rome; his campaign for Congress (outpolling JFK in his district); and his legendary feuds with, among many others, Truman Capote and William F. Buckley.

At the emotional heart of this book is his evocation of his first and greatest love, boyhood friend Jimmy Trimble, killed in battle on Iwo Jima.

'Gore Vidal, a writer of lustrous and fabulously readable prose, was always ahead of his time, so it is wonderful to see some of his finest works being republished for an audience who will be ready to (re)discover his daring, his insight and his wickedly waspish wit' STEPHEN FRY

Reviews

An elegantly observed, ineffably sad - and at times hysterically funny - memoir -- David Andrews * Sunday Express *
One of the best first-person accounts of this century we are likely to get * Sunday Times *
An engrossing and beguiling read. Admirably candid, refreshingly indiscreet, intelligent and full of wit, it is also startlingly original... An unequivocal triumph -- William Boyd * Daily Telegraph *
He does not narrate his life: he revies it. The result is something quite novel and wonderfully appealing, a critical biography of himself...Vidal's life might even be his greatest work * Independent *
Wonderfully entertaining. You want the high-level political gossip You get it here... it offers all the zing of a Dry Martini without the danger of getting drunk * Daily Telegraph *
A tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book * Sunday Times *
This wide-ranging book is every bit as interesting as one might have hoped. The grave themes that run through it are the more welcome for the fact that they are not included at the expense of any gossip -- Sebastian Faulks * Spectator *
Applaud Mr Vidal's stirring lack of mellowness in this, his autobiography; may he have long life and much free ink -- Julian Barnes * Guardian *
A record of the transmutation, of the base into the gold, that is the raw stuff of literature -- Christopher Hitchens * London Review of Books *
Matches some of the great literary memoirs of childhood * Financial Times *
There are passages from Gore Vidal's Palimpsest which expose that Mount Rushmore mind like nothing else he has written * Melvyn Bragg *
Throughout his book we find him warm and generous among the poisoned arrows he also flings * The Times *
Few Americans can boast the quality cast that Vidal can muster for his autobiography, and no one turns as wicked a phrase about them ... more please * Time Out *
Unforgettable * Moira Shearer *
Thirty-five years of American history in perfect prose * Attitude *
May well be the best book of his long and interesting career ... Vidal is a creature of infinite surprise * Washington Post *

Author Bio

Gore Vidal was at the centre of literary and intellectual life for half a century and wrote 'The Narratives of a Golden Age' series as well as countless bestsellers. He died on 31st July 2012.