New Releases by Gore Vidal

In "In a Yellow Wood," Gore Vidal crafts a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the existential wanderings of the human soul. Set against the backdrop of a tension-filled America during the late 20th century, the novel unfolds through rich, lyrical prose that deftly shifts between introspection and dialogue. Vidal''Äôs narrative technique is emblematic of postmodern literature, weaving personal history and social critique into a tapestry that reflects the complexities of identity and belonging. The title itself alludes to Robert Frost''Äôs famous poem, framing a journey of self-discovery in the metaphorical woods of uncertainty and choice. Gore Vidal, an eminent figure in American literature, was known for his incisive commentary on politics and society, which is deeply infused in his works. His upbringing in a politically active family, combined with his experiences during World War II, profoundly shaped his worldview and artistic voice. Vidal''Äôs exposure to diverse cultures and intellectual circles added layers to his understanding of human relationships, making "In a Yellow Wood" not just a story, but a mirror reflecting societal dynamics and personal struggles. This novel is highly recommended for readers seeking a reflective narrative that provokes thought and challenges conventions. Vidal''s masterful storytelling and sharp wit offer a compelling reading experience, inviting one to contemplate their own paths amid the forests of life. Engage with this work to uncover the intricate connections between individual choices and collective history.

Vidal on Vidal—a great and supremely entertaining writer on a great and endlessly fascinating subject. A New York Times best American memoir “In the hands of Gore Vidal, a pen is a sword. And he points it at the high and mighty who have crossed his path.” —Los Angeles Times 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.

The outrageous and immortal, gender-bending and polymorphously perverse, over-the-top, and utterly on-target comic masterpiece from the bestselling author of Burr, Lincoln, and the National Book Award-winning United States. With a new introduction by Camille Paglia "I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess." So begins the irresistible testimony of the luscious instructor of Empathy and Posture at Buck Loner''s Academy of Drama and Modeling. Myra has a secret that only her surgeon shares; a passion for classic Hollywood films, which she regards as the supreme achievements of Western culture; and a sacred mission to bring heteronormative civilization to its knees. Fifty years after its first publication unleashed gales of laughter, delight, and ferocious dissent ("Has literary decency fallen so low?" asked Time), Myra Breckinridge''s moment to instruct and delight has once again arrived.

Written by “America’s finest essayist” (New Statesman), At Home brings together twenty-four essays on subjects ranging from Henry James to Nancy Reagan, Oscar Wilde to Oliver North, Hollywood to Mongolia. From the leaders and lunacies of contemporary America to reminiscences of his own childhood, whether answering his own critics or excoriating the current state of literature, Gore Vidal is, as always, elegant, incisive, and brilliant. “As provocative and perceptive a social and literary critic as America has today.” –Newsweek “[Vidal’s] pieces grab one’s attention and refuse to let go. At once forthright and mendacious, smart and demented, they’re written…with panache, vigor and a caustic, often perverse wit…As a stylist he’s almost a national treasure.” –Wall Street Journal “I can’t think of any writer more certain to have exactly the right opinion on absolutely everything.” –Washington Post Book World

Fourty-four essays on literature, politicking in government and in literary circles, and such celebrated contemporary characters as Norman Mailer, Dr. David Reuben, and Susan Sontag by the man Alfred Kazin has called "one of the best-informed and most biting polemicists of our overgrown American way of life."

When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Gore Vidal’s deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult.-Print ed.

An American smuggler in Egypt finds himself at the mercy of killers, femme fatales, and an escalating revolution—a lost pulp crime novel from one of the legends of the genre Lost for more than 60 years and overflowing with political and sexual intrigue, Thieves Fall Out provides a delicious glimpse into the mind of legendary writer Gore Vidal in his formative years. By turns mischievous and deadly serious, Vidal tells the story of a man caught up in events bigger than he is, a down-on-his-luck American hired to smuggle an ancient relic out of Cairo at a time when revolution is brewing and heads are about to roll. One part Casablanca and one part torn-from-the-headlines tabloid reportage, this novel also offers a startling glimpse of Egypt in turmoil—written over half a century ago, but as current as the news streaming from the streets of Cairo today. Gore Vidal was one of America’s greatest and most controversial writers. The author of twenty-three novels, five plays, three memoirs, numerous screenplays and short stories, and well over two hundred essays, he received the National Book Award in 1993. In 1953, Vidal had already begun writing the works that would launch him to the top ranks of American authors and intellectuals. But in the wake of criticism for the scandalous content of his third novel, The City and the Pillar, Vidal turned to writing crime fiction under pseudonyms: three books as “Edgar Box” and one as “Cameron Kay.” The Edgar Box novels were subsequently republished under his real name. The Cameron Kay never was.

This unique collection of interviews and correspondence records the infamous and decades-long fight (both rhetorical and physical) between Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. The feud remains of cult interest to many in the literary community, with the legacy of both remaining strong to this day. The introduction is provided by legendary talk-show presenter Dick Cavett, of The Dick Cavett Show fame.

"I exist to say, ‘No, that isn''t the way it is,'' or ‘What you believe to be true is not true for the following reasons.'' I am a master of the obvious. I mean, if there''s a hole in the road, I will, viciously, outrageously, say there''s a hole in the road and if you don''t fill it in you''ll break the axle of your car. One is not loved for being helpful." Gore Vidal, one of America''s foremost essayists, screenwriters, and novelists, died July 31, 2012. He was, in addition, a terrific conversationalist. Dick Cavett once described him as "the best talker since Oscar Wilde." And Vidal was never more eloquent, or caustic, than when let loose on his favorite topic, the history and politics of the United States. This book is made up from four interviews conducted with his long–time interlocutor, the writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate. The interviews cover a twenty–year span, from 1988 to 2008, when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America''s place in the world, are all on full display. And, of course, it being Gore Vidal, an ample sprinkling of gloriously acerbic one–liners is also provided.

In Death Before Bedtime, dashing P.R. man Peter Sargent is invited to the home of a venerable senator to help strategize his imminent run for president. On the night before he’s to announce, though, the senator is murdered in his bed. No longer needed as a political publicist, Sargent finds himself helping the police find the killer. He deftly navigates an eccentric cast of characters, all of whom are suspects: the rebellious daughter; the sycophantic aide; the grieving widow; and the power-hungry governor with his eye on the senator’s job. Somehow, between charming the senator’s daughter and glad-handing Washington’s elite, Sargent still manages to methodically put the pieces into place and sees that politics truly is a cut-throat business.

In Death in the Fifth Position, dashing P.R. man Peter Sargent is hired by a ballet company on the eve of a major upcoming performance. Handling the press seems to be no problem, but when a rising star in the company is killed during the performance—dropped from thirty feet above the stage, crashing to her death in a perfect fifth position—Sargent has a real case on his hands. As he ingratiates himself with the players behind the scenes (especially one lovely young ballerina), he finds that this seemingly graceful ballet company is performing their most dramatic acts behind the curtain. There are sharp rivalries, sordid affairs, and shady characters. Sargent, though, has no trouble staying on point and proving that the ballerina killer is no match for his keen eye and raffish charm.

When Gore Vidal''s recent New York Times bestseller Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was published, the Los Angeles Times described Vidal as the last defender of the American republic. In Dreaming War, Vidal continues this defense by confronting the Cheney-Bush junta head on in a series of devastating essays that demolish the lies American Empire lives by, unveiling a counter-history that traces the origins of America''s current imperial ambitions to the experience of World War Two and the post-war Truman doctrine. And now, with the Cheney-Bush leading us into permanent war, Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was "the unlovely Osama chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan?" After all he was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein once the Taliban were overthrown. And while "evidence" is now being invented to connect Saddam with 9/11, the current administration are not helped by "stories in the U.S. press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must- for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to U.S. consortiums."

Gore Vidal—novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist—is America''s premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his best-loved pieces of criticism, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, and, occasionally, unfettered score settling. It will stand as one of the most enjoyable and durable works from the hand and mind of this vastly accomplished and entertaining immortal of American literature.

In a witty and elegant autobiography that takes up where his bestelling Palimpsest left off, the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal reflects on his remarkable life.Writing from his desks in Ravello and the Hollywood Hills, Vidal travels in memory through the arenas of literature, television, film, theatre, politics, and international society where he has cut a wide swath, recounting achievements and defeats, friends and enemies made (and sometimes lost). From encounters with, amongst others, Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Francis Ford Coppola to the mournful passing of his longtime partner, Howard Auster, Vidal always steers his narrative with grace and flair. Entertaining, provocative, and often moving, Point to Point Navigation wonderfully captures the life of one of twentieth-century America’s most important writers.

Almost sixty years ago, Gore Vidal burst onto the literary landscape with his World War II novel Williwaw. He never looked back. To date he has published twenty-nine novels, one short story collection, six theatrical plays, and numerous books of nonfiction. His novel The City and the Pillar was a groundbreaking work in the history of homosexual literature. In Myra Breckinridge Vidal created a ribald parody of sexual morality and identity. In 1967 Vidal published Washington, D.C. It would be the first of seven novels that have come to be known as the American Chronicles, a sprawling history of the empire filled with a cast of the most significant social, literary, and political figures of the United States. Conversations with Gore Vidal features provocative and intriguing interviews with one of America''s most prolific authors. Vidal was an enfant terrible in the 1940s and a marginalized homosexual in the 1950s. As Edgar Box he wrote mysteries, and as a screenwriter he penned the script for Ben-Hur. In 1960 he ran for Congress. In the 1990s, he appeared in films such as Gattaca, Bob Roberts, and Shadow Conspiracy. His essay collection United States: Essays 1952-1992, which features 114 pieces on everything from Howard Hughes to French literature, won the National Book Award. Vidal proves himself here to be a witty, acerbic, cantankerous conversationalist, one who is willing to-and often eager to-defy conventional wisdom and lacerate the tired clich s inherent in both politics and literature. A defiant political insider who is related to both the Gores and the Kennedys, he is a proud Leftist who nevertheless does not hesitate to slash at party orthodoxy when he deems it necessary. Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole are the editors of the literary journal Gargoyle, based in Washington, D.C.

One of the master stylists of American literature, Gore Vidal now provides us with his uniquely irreverent take on America''s founding fathers, bringing them to life at key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. “Pure Vidal. . . . Inventing a Nation is his edgy tribute to the way we were before the fall.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “[Vidal offers] details that enliven and . . . reflections on the past that point sharply to today.” —Richard Eder, New York Times “An engaging [and] . . . unblinking view of our national heroes by one who cherishes them, warts and all.”—Edmund S. Morgan, New York Review of Books “[Vidal''s] quick wit flickers over the canonical tale of our republic''s founding, turning it into a dark and deliciously nuanced comedy of men, manners, and ideas.”—Amanda Heller, Boston Sunday Globe “This entertaining and enlightening reappraisal of the Founders is a must for buffs of American civilization and its discontents.”—Booklist “Gore Vidal . . . still understands American history backwards and forwards as few writers ever have.”—David Kipen, National Public Radio

Presents a series of articles and essays criticizing recent developments in American government and foreign policy, especially during the administration of George W. Bush.

The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels. Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.

A sweeping novel of politics, war, philosophy, and adventure–in a restored edition, featuring never-before-published material from Gore Vidal’s original manuscript–Creation offers a captivating grand tour of the ancient world. Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens–the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates–Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys: how the universe was created, and why evil was created with good. In revisiting the fifth century b.c.–one of the most spectacular periods in history–Gore Vidal illuminates the ideas that have shaped civilizations for millennia.

Like his National Book Award—winning United States, Gore Vidal’s scintillating ninth collection, The Last Empire, affirms his reputation as our most provocative critic and observer of the modern American scene. In the essays collected here, Vidal brings his keen intellect, experience, and razor-edged wit to bear on an astonishing range of subjects. From his celebrated profiles of Clare Boothe Luce and Charles Lindbergh and his controversial essay about the Bill of Rights–which sparked an extended correspondence with convicted Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh–to his provocative analyses of literary icons such as John Updike and Mark Twain and his trenchant observations about terrorism, civil liberties, the CIA, Al Gore, Tony Blair, and the Clintons, Vidal weaves a rich tapestry of personal anecdote, critical insight, and historical detail. Written between the first presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and the electoral crisis of 2000, The Last Empire is a sweeping coda to the last century’s conflicted vision of the American dream.

Essays question the consensus of the causes behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, and examines the erosion of American civil liberties as a result of the war on terrorism.

"Mr. Vidal demonstrates a political imagination and insider''s sagacity equaled by no other practicing fiction writer I can think of. And like the earlier novels in his historical cycle, Empire is a wonderfully vivid documentary drama." —The New York Times Book Review In this extraordinarily powerful epic Gore Vidal recreates America''s Gilded Age—a period of promise and possibility, of empire-building and fierce political rivalries. In a vivid and beathtaking work of fiction, where the fortunes of a sister and brother intertwine with the fates of the generation, their country, and some of the greatest names of their day, including President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, William and Henry James, the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the Whitneys, Gore Vidal sweeps us from the nineteenth century into the twentieth, from the salvaged republic of Lincoln to a nation boldly reaching for the world.

Gore Vidal''s Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers. The centennial of the United States was celebrated with great fanfare--fireworks, exhibitions, pious calls to patriotism, and perhaps the most underhanded political machination in the country''s history: the theft of the presidency from Samuel Tilden in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes. This was the Gilded Age, when robber barons held the purse strings of the nation, and the party in power was determined to stay in power. Gore Vidal''s 1876 gives us the news of the day through the eyes of Charlie Schuyler, who has returned from exile to regain a lost fortune and arrange a marriage into New York society for his widowed daughter. And although Tammany Hall has faltered and Boss Tweed has fled, the effects of corruption reach deep, even into Schuyler''s own family.

Profiles the American presidency and discusses the contributions of the more influential presidents.

When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Gore Vidal''s deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heaven''s Gate suicide cult.

Good Friday, 1939, and T., a sixteen-year-old schoolboy, arrives at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. The museum is closed, but T. manages to slip in, and it would appear that somehow, he is expected. An old man, Bentsen, shows him around, and T. realises that all is not as it seems. As he goes to examine a Native American exhibit, he is drawn magically into the nineteenth-century world of a reservation of Sioux Indians. They like what they see of T. and immediately get the pot boiling. T. is forced to take refuge in the tent of a young Squaw. They become lovers, and she helps him to escape back to the safety of the Smithsonian. Back with Bentsen, T. explores the Smithsonian further and begins to fathom the mysteries of time travel. The Smithsonian scientists have discovered how to get back to the past, but still don''t know how to travel to the future. T. puts his brilliant mathematical brain to the problem. However, given a glimpse into the future, T. sees his own untimely death, and becomes determined to prevent the outbreak of WWII...

When Gore Vidal''s frank description of homosexual life, The City and the Pillar, was first published in 1948, the reaction was both unexpected and shocking. Republished now in hardcover with a new introduction by the author, this classic is being featured with seven of Vidal''s early stories.

"Gore Vidal''s reputation as "America''s finest essayist" is an enduring one. Vidal has a gift for writing about the events of the moment with an astuteness usually reserved for the beneficiaries of hindsight, and about events of the past with the familiarity of someone who has just come out of the room where they were happening. This collection, chosen by the author from forty years of work, contains about two thirds of what he has published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the Art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on the French New Novel, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Edmund Wilson, Nabokov, Herman Wouk, Italo Calvino, and Montaigne (a previously uncollected essay from 1992). State of the Union deals with politics and public life: sex, drugs, pornography, money, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, H. L. Mencken, "The Holy Family" (his famous essay on the Kennedys), Nixon, Reagan, and, finally, "Monotheism and Its Discontents," a scathing critique of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In State of Being, we are given "personal responses to people and events": recollections of his childhood, E. Nesbit, Tarzan, as well as Tennessee Williams, Anais Nin, making movies, travel, home. A lifetime of work from a writer of enormous intelligence, wit, and style."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Six essays on the theme of empire and republic, with particular focus on the national security state and the failure of the U.S. economic system./Pu003e