A candid memoir of Vidal's first 40 years of life. His famous skills as a raconteur, his forthrightness, and his wicked wit are brilliantly at work in these recollections of a difficult family, talented friends, and interesting enemies.


From Publishers Weekly
Vidal's account of his first 39 years includes his reminiscences of a host of prominent political and cultural figures. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Prolific essayist, novelist (Burr et al.), screenwriter (Suddenly, Last Summer), playwright (The Best Man), and sometime political candidate Vidal quotes the definition of palimpsest as " 'a parchment which has been written upon twice; the original having been rubbed out.' " This particular memoir of his first 39 years (1926-65), says Vidal, has "many rubbings-out and puttings-in," which may explain its many-layered nature and the bare nod to chronology, with flashbacks and flashforwards and curious juxtapositions of friend and foe. In it he blithely skewers both family and friends (or ex-friends)-particularly his alcoholic mother, the Auchinclosses, John and Jackie Kennedy, Anais Nin and other literati, and too many more to recount-with nasty revelations. But Vidal is still a stylish writer, and those not put off by the mean-spiritedness of these self-serving memoirs and fascinated by the literary, political, and entertainment worlds of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s may want to read this.--Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Gore Vidal is a mass of delightful contradictions: a man who has devoted a good portion of his life to same-sex erotic encounters but who professes not to be a homosexual in what he considers the limiting modern sense of the term; a blue-blooded intellectual who never went to college and believes that the amateur is the "very best sort of reader" ; and, finally, a memoirist who vowed never to write a memoir but has produced, perhaps, the most compelling and deliciously fun memoir to appear in several decades. From a purely voyeuristic perspective, how could this account of Vidal's first 39 years (through 1964) be anything but compelling, given the cast of characters? "It seems that practically everyone I have ever met is now the subject of at least one biography," Vidal notes in a tone somewhere between honest bemusement and none-too-subtle back-patting. Novelist, Broadway playwright, studio screenwriter, politician, hobnobber with everyone from Tennessee Williams to Jackie Kennedy (they shared the same stepfather) to George Santayana to Greta Garbo to the duke and duchess of Windsor--Vidal turns up alongside as many famous people as Woody Allen's Zelig; the difference between them is that, unlike Zelig, Vidal knows (and tells) who his famous friends had sex with (occasionally, as in the case of Jack Kerouac, it was Vidal himself). Ranging from bitchy to compassionate to shrewd, Vidal's wit-drenched remembrances of the people around him never fail to entertain, perhaps because, in his own words, "I was certainly more interested in my view of them than I was in my view of myself." We all spend some of our most pleasurable hours talking about other people; Vidal makes that fundamental human activity into a minor art form. Bill Ott


From Book News, Inc.
Vidal employs his characteristic wit and the gift for turning an elegant story in a candid memoir of the first 40 years of his life. His story comes complete with a difficult family, talented friends, and interesting enemies. The cast includes Tennessee Williams, the Kennedys, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman Capote, Joanne Woodward, Jane and Paul Bowles, and Ana<:;i>s Nin, among others. B&w photos. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Palimpsest By Gore Vidal. The bestselling author turns his wit and elegant storytelling skills to a candid memoir of the first 40 years of his life. Includes fascinating profiles of Tennessee Williams, the Kennedys, Jane and Paul Bowles, Leonard Bernstein, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, others. B&W photos. (Random House) 435pp. HC

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This delightful little book is the perfect introduction to Gore Vidal￯﾿ﾽs witty political writing.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Prolific essayist, novelist (Burr et al.), screenwriter (Suddenly, Last Summer), playwright (The Best Man), and sometime political candidate Vidal quotes the definition of palimpsest as " `a parchment which has been written upon twice; the original having been rubbed out.' " This particular memoir of his first 39 years (1926-65), says Vidal, has "many rubbings-out and puttings-in," which may explain its many-layered nature and the bare nod to chronology, with flashbacks and flashforwards and curious juxtapositions of friend and foe. In it he blithely skewers both family and friends (or ex-friends)-particularly his alcoholic mother, the Auchinclosses, John and Jackie Kennedy, Anas Nin and other literati, and too many more to recount-with nasty revelations. But Vidal is still a stylish writer, and those not put off by the mean-spiritedness of these self-serving memoirs and fascinated by the literary, political, and entertainment worlds of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s may want to read this. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/95; BOMC and Quality Paperback selections; New Yorker serial, Oct. 2.]-Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"

Booknews