Palimpsest

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By Gore Vidal

Publisher Description

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.

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19 Reviews

4.0

Justin Clark

Created about 2 months ago

“Gore Vidal turned 70 in 1995, and with such a momentous occasion for both author and public, it is rather fitting that he decided to publish a memoir, something he previously said he wouldn’t do. What got him to change his mind? Perhaps it was a sense that many of his generation were already gone, lost to time as we all will be. Conversely, Vidal’s sense of resilience might have encouraged him to write his life story, showing all who were interested that he was hanging on to torment the ruling class he had run from his entire life. Palimpsest: A Memoir is easily one of Gore’s best books— encyclopedic in its knowledge of his era, touching about the people he cared for, and biting towards those he loathed. The title embodies the approach he took when writing his memoir; palimpsest is a piece of writing that is erased to be written over, but some of the previous writing remains. Vidal, always one to break with standard literary convention, jumps around in time within each chapter, such as reflecting on a story about the playwright Tenneesee Williams in 1948 and then recalling the day's events in 1992. There’s a frenetic energy in the book that I find wonderfully intoxicating, as Gore saunters from moment to moment in his life, never staying in one place for too long. Born in 1925 at West Point, Eugene Luther Gore Vidal was the son of a dashing former college athlete-turned-aviator and the daughter of a U.S. Senator. Early in life he realized how unlike his parents he actually was, preferring to read for long hours in his grandfather’s attic than playing sports with other boys. His grandfather, Thomas Pryor “T. P.” Gore represented Oklahoma in the Senate, a state he helped found. Blind by adolescence, he needed someone to read to him in order to glean knowledge, something his grandson dutifully did. Gore had a good relationship with his father Gene, who supported him but didn’t quite understand him. By contrast, his relationship with his mother Nina soured early, largely due to her histrionic personality and intense alcoholism. Vidal remarked that love is something he didn’t quite get, yet he did feel an overwhelming sense of affection for a classmate of his at St. Albans school for boys, Jimmy Trimble. Gore called Trimble his “twin,” who completed him in more ways than one. Handsome, athletically gifted, and socially adept, he represented the closest thing Gore experienced as love until he met Howard Austen, his lifetime partner, in the 1950s. Like Vidal, Trimble served in World War II but sadly died during the battle of Iwo Jima, mere months before the end of the war. He was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.; Vidal picked out a plot near him in the early 1990s, where his final resting place is today. He served on a supply ship in the Aleutian Islands during World War II, happy to get away from the confining walls of Exeter Academy, where he graduated high school. His experiences during the war inspired his first novel, published when he was only 20 years old, Williwaw. Hailed early as an important novelist of his generation, Vidal decided to throw caution to the wind and, in 1948, published The City and Pillar, one of the first mainstream American novels to deal with the subject of homosexuality. Despite some good reviews and plaudits from people as varied as Thomas Mann and Alfred Kinsey, The City and the Pillar left Vidal culturally blacklisted by the New York Times and other publications. Eager to be financially independent and continually relevant, Vidal put novels on the backburner for a decade, moving headlong into writing plays for television. One such play, the anti-war satire Visit to a Small Planet, made its way to broadway with much success. This was a transitional period for Vidal, as he testifies in the book. While he desired to get back to novel writing, he also enjoyed working on plays and films, especially 1959’s Ben-Hur, where he made substantial contributions to the production despite receiving writing credit. He also continued his interest in politics, becoming closer to future president John F. Kennedy and interviewing Senator Barry Goldwater. The latter interview became a part of his first collection of published essays, which proved to be a major component of his writing output and cultural impact. In 1960, Vidal ran for congress, hoping to win New York’s 29th district where he lived. Hot off the success of his play, The Best Man, a drama which focused on a national political convention, Vidal hoped to parlay that success into his own political career. Vidal worked hard to win the district, learning about its issues, especially dairy farming, and speaking to small groups all across the district. He ran on a more progressive platform, advocating for federal education funding and American recognition of the People’s Republic of China, tempered by a pragmatic, independent approach to winning swing voters. While he lost the election to incumbent Republican J. Ernest Wharton 57 percent to 43, he performed better than any Democrat in the district in 50 years and even outperformed Kennedy. Vidal would tip his toe into political campaigns again in the early 1970s and early 1980s, but never recaptured the success he had in the 1960 election. His 1960 run also helped him realize that he’d rather be a writer critiquing power than a politician holding power. The back half of Palimpsest deals somewhat exclusively on his friendship with JFK, which would eventually fizzle out when Vidal decided to move to Rome and he lost favor with some of the president’s inner circle, especially Robert Kennedy. You get a sense that Vidal liked Kennedy a lot but had serious misgivings about his presidency, as the Bay of Pigs, his disastrous first meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis attested to. Gore desperately wanted out of the world of presidential politics and its social requirements, so he left for Rome to write his first novel in years, a chronicle of the 4th century Roman emperor, Julian. …And that’s where the memoir leaves off, leaving the rest of his life to be written about in future essays and his final memoir, Point to Point Navigation (2006). Palimpsest is an unreserved classic, easily one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. Vidal enchants the reader with his erudition, intelligent criticism, and steadfast iconoclasm. If someone were to ask me which of his books to start with, Palimpsest would be at the top of the list.”

Christopher Sarda

Created 3 months ago

Steph

Created 8 months ago

ciusky

Created over 1 year ago

Tyler Zamora

Created about 2 years ago

“I must admit, I felt a bit like an imposter reading Vidal’s memoir. I have honestly never read a book by him, although I do have a copy of The City and the Pillar ready to read. I imagine I’ll get to it a lot sooner now. And despite not knowing the author’s literary work, I was still able to connect with him throughout this memoir. It was also nice to know he had his hand in several Hollywood films, such as “Suddenly, Last Summer” and “The Best Man”, among others. The reason I read this book is because I started a reading challenge this year that has a different theme every month. The theme of this month was to read a memoir by someone whose career you wish you had. I had to think about it for a minute and I looked over at my bookshelf and saw Vidal’s memoir that I had won in a Goodreads giveaway (thanks again Goodreads). I picked it up, not knowing anything about Vidal’s career other than the fact that he was a notorious “gay” author. I would love to write books one day or scripts for the screen, so I figured why not jump in, even though I didn’t know much about him. After finishing, I thought Vidal was very witty, to the point, and honest. These are all qualities I see in myself, so by some reason it made me feel closer to him. I enjoyed his candor on politics, even though he basically admits we’re all doomed when it comes to the American government. His stories about JFK, Jackie, and Bobby were great. Who knew Bobby liked underage girls and boys? I’m not sure the validity of those claims, but I was right there with my popcorn. It was also nice to hear how gay men maneuvered through their lives back in a time when they were not accepted. From the Roman baths, to literary queens reading each other to filth (Tennessee Williams vs. Truman Capote), and so many other fun stories, it’s clear that gay culture has always existed, albeit hidden and left to the pages of those who lived it. Sometimes the author’s class did show up a bit and he commented on some things I felt were questionable, but after all, he was living at a time where status was everything. It’s hard for him not to operate in the same manner, but in this memoir I think he reflects a bit on why he did that and why it might have been wrong, sometimes. It’s nice to see someone have the ability to be so honest with themselves. I definitely recommend if you like politics, old Hollywood, vintage LGBTQ+ stories, or just plain old juicy memoirs.”

About Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was born at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. His first novel, Williwaw, appeared in the spring of 1946. He wrote more than twenty-four novels, five plays, many screenplays, and more than two hundred essays. Vidal’s United States: Essays 1952–1992 won the 1993 National Book Award. He died at his home in Los Angeles at the age of eighty-six.