Culture | Gore Vidal

Life out loud

As a public intellectual, Gore Vidal was snobbish and hypersensitive, but so eloquent

Fine views

Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal. By Jay Parini. Penguin Random House; 480 pages; $35. Published in the UK as “Every Time A Friend Succeeds Something Inside Me Dies: The Life of Gore Vidal”. Little, Brown; £25.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Life out loud”

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