Gore Vidal's America
Polity celebrities series
Gore Vidal is one of the most significant American writers of the
second half of the twentieth century, having produced a large
number of best selling novels, essays, plays and pamphlets which
have impacted on major political and social debates for fifty
years. He is both a serious writer and a television and movie
celebrity, whose increasingly acerbic picture of the United States
guarantees he is both revered and reviled.
Gore Vidal's America examines the ways in which Vidal's
writings on history, politics, sex and religion throw into focus
our understandings of the United States, but also recognizes his
versatility and inventiveness as a creative writer, some of whose
novels - Julian; Myra Breckinridge; Lincoln; Duluth - are among the
important literary works of their time.
Ranging from Vidal's early defence of homosexuality in The City
and the Pillar (1948) to his most recent writings on the war in
Iraq, this book provides a unique perspective on the evolution of
post-World War II American society, politics and literature. As
Altman writes: "Difficult not to see in the results of the
2004 elections, where the Republican right gained in both the White
House and the Senate, proof of Vidal's worse fears, namely that the
impact of imperial adventure, big money and religious moralism
would increasingly imperil the American Republic."
Acknowledgements.
Introduction.
One Vidal's Life.
Two Celebrity.
Three America and its History.
Gore Vidal's American Chronicles.
The Growth of American Empire.
Masculinity and Empire.
Four Politics.
Vidal and America in the Twenty First Century.
Gore Vidal and 'Political Correctness'.
Five Vidal as Writer.
Six Sex.
Gore Vidal and Queer Theory.
Seven Hollywood.
Eight Religion.
Nine Gore Vidal's America.
Personal Note.
Notes.
References.
Chronology.
General index.
Index of Fictional Characters.
as he says, but a study deeply indebted to its subject. He has a
long personal acquaintance with Vidal and a profound appreciation
of his daring writing on sex and gender, confessional and
transgressional ... He is especially good on the 'aggrieved
patriot', saddened and angered at what his country has come
to."
-- Alex Danchev, Times Higher Education
Supplement
"Dennis Altman has certainly evoked with great thoroughness a
now lost world - American and European - ranging from
Depression to World War II to the decline of the Hollywood studios
to the rise of global television, not to mention that global empire
to which his protagonist stands so edgily aslant."
-- Gore Vidal
"Dennis Altman, it turns out, is the perfect person to write a
study of Gore Vidal. A revolutionary thinker in his own right, a
long-time friend of Vidal, an Australian, Altman has the ideal
perspective on America's grand old expatriate of letters and
politics. In this exciting portrait Altman gives us Vidal alive and
well and more radical than ever. This is a profound picture of
Vidal's thought, not just a trivial biography of his
quirks."
-- Edmund White
"Dennis Altman has written what amounts to the finest work yet
published on Gore Vidal. Altman understands the unique role Vidal
has played -- as novelist, playwright, and essayist -- in defining
and critiquing American culture from the inside, as someone who has
both watched the culture evolve and played a role in its
production. This wise, beautifully written, and insightful book
will stimulate discussion for years to come."
-- Jay Parini, Middlebury College
"Dennis Altman is well placed to unravel the paradox of Gore
Vidal, concentrating here on his politics, sexuality and love-hate
relationship with the US. This study is every bit as fascinating as
the great man himself."
Gay Times
"Altman's main purpose is to provide a detailed analysis of
Vidal's long and prolific career and he succeeds brilliantly in
this aim. Vidal's extraordinary productivity means that Altman has
a great deal of primary material to work with, but he marshals his
forty and more key texts with remarkable ease. It is a long time
since I've experienced such clarity in a critical work of this
kind; Altman has a positive but open style, which directs the
reader without ever shutting out the possibility of alternative
readings of the Vidal oeuvre."
Laurie N Ede, Screening the Past