To Vidal, the book is a study of obsession to many guardians of moral purity, it seems to glorify homosexuality. The result, The City and the Pillar, affected the rest of his career. In writing his third novel, Vidal probed the boundaries of society’s sexual tolerance. Society tempts the unwary by offering comfort and security and then removes the life-sustaining freedom of those who succumb to the temptation. A “heterosexual dictatorship” and a life-numbing Christian establishment try to impose false moral absolutes. Vidal’s young male protagonists find themselves entering a relativistic world in which all gods are dead. In his early novels, one can see Vidal’s interest in ideas. He is interested in politics- how people make society work-and religion, the proper perspective on life as one faces death. If one can with certainty learn little from Vidal’s fiction about such famous people as the Kennedys, readers can learn much about his major concern, the nature of Western civilization and the individual’s role within it. The unwary gossipmonger can easily fall into Vidal’s many traps. Vidal refracts real people and events through his delightfully perverse imagination. Vidal draws from his own rich experience as he creates his fictional world, yet he is a very private person, and he resists people’s urge to reduce everyone to a known quantity.

Some people search Vidal’s writing for clues to his own life and sexuality. Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel, for example, is often read as an account of the lives and loves of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her sister, Lee Bouvier. (Photo by Ulf Andersen/Getty Images)īecause Vidal knows most contemporary public figures-including jet-setters, Wall Street insiders, and Washington wheeler-dealers-many readers comb his writing to glean intriguing bits of gossip. Color version not available.) American writer Gore Vidal poses during portrait session held on Main Paris, France. (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been shot in black and white.

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