Review by Booklist Review
Details are copious in this edifying portrait of one of America's most accomplished writers. The strength of Kaplan as a biographer (author of Dickens [1990] and Henry James [1992]) lies in his ability to weave considerable information into a smooth, interpretive account. Vidal sprang from a distinguished family--his grandfather was a well-known U.S. senator from Oklahoma--and his childhood and adolescence were cushioned by financial privilege. But he was not close to his parents, and we see in the growing boy the adult man: self-involved and emotionally detached (despite, in adulthood, the continued presence of a long-term companion). But, of course, these traits were ameliorated by his charm and good looks. Vidal's desire to write surfaced early, as did an abiding interest in politics, and he has remained involved in both arenas throughout his life. Vidal is essentially homosexual, but that did not keep him from experiencing intense relationships with women, the famous expatriate writer Anais Nin chief among them. His list of writings includes not only novels, for which he is most celebrated, but also plays and essays, and he has been able to support himself by his literary output, a blessing that has given him considerable flexibility in where he chooses to live and visit. He has certainly known many people--mostly, the rich and famous--and Kaplan is not reticent about mentioning them all; however, he often throws in a little too much detail. Nevertheless, a major literary biography of this season. --Brad Hooper
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Kaplan has written esteemed lives of Henry James, Dickens and Carlyle and is a professor of English at Queens College. He candidly admits, in a "prelude" that opens the book, "I prefer my subjects dead," and perhaps having a subject not yet dead has made it more difficult for Kaplan to synthesize the life and work, to put Vidal into context and to pinpoint the telling details of his subject's productive life. For this extremely long biography showcases erudition at the expense of selection, and the book drowns in encyclopedic detail. Much of the detail, drawn from Kaplan's access to Vidal's papers, is enlightening. Kaplan is especially good on Vidal's relationships with his editors at publishing companies and magazines and his friendships and feuds with Joanne Woodward, Christopher Isherwood, Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, William Buckley and others. His analysis of Vidal's multifarious work (novels, essays, plays, screenplays) is often elucidating. His accounts of Vidal's various runs for office are also useful. Yet it is annoying to read long-winded prose with a disappointing lack of immediacy. (Compare, for instance, Gerald Clarke's scintillating biography of Truman Capote, also about a contemporary writer known for his wit and style, and also written with the cooperation of its subject.) Kaplan, falling far short of that standard, convinces the reader that Vidal's unusually vast involvement with the political and literary life of his times is impressive, without seeming to draw much inspiration from Vidal's own biting prose, which, though cited dutifully, fails to spark in this context. Rather than coming to life, Vidal seems entombed within the pages of this book. 12 pages b&w photos. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Queens College and CUNY's Graduate Center, Kaplan relied on interviews, newsreel and TV footage, and full access to Vidal's papers for this biography. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Although Kaplan has declared, ``I prefer my subjects dead,'' such as Dickens (1988) and Henry James (1992), he more than rises to the task in this lively biography of the prolific, controversial author. Vidal's own anecdotal, rather pitiless memoir, Palimpsest (1995), covered a little over halfway through his life, having beaten one failed biographic attempt, and left many wanting more. Kaplan delivers a volume almost as long as his The Essential Gore Vidal (1999) and longer than his previous well-received efforts. With Kaplan's near-total access to Vidal's papers, reams of interviews, and assured editorial independence, Vidal's privileged Washingtonian background and ever-changing literary career, plus his talent for literary blood sports, make him as natural and fascinating a subject for a biography as for headlines. Grandson of Oklahoma's first senator and son of a Roosevelt cabinet director, Eugene Luther Gore Vidal Jr. showed little promise despite exclusive schooling, had a noncombatant tour of duty in WWII, and then immediately succeeded with his first novel, Williwaw. In Vidal's metamorphosis from promising young writer to perennial enfant terrible, only a few holes arise here and there, such as his breaking off an engagement with his high school sweetheart and his depression after the mixed reception of his third novel. Kaplan's talent for setting social milieus keeps up with the innumerable names that drop in and out of Vidal's life (including Tennessee Williams, Anas Nin, Paul Bowles, and Paul Newman, to name just a few), though he refrains from assessing in depth Vidal's place in the assorted creative scenes in which he figured so prominently, such as playwriting, screenwriting, the bestseller, and the polemical essay. While frank about Vidal's homosexuality, Kaplan tastefully avoids psychologizing, though the psychodramas of Vidal's relationship with his narcissistic mother and his feuds with William F. Buckley Jr., Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer are juicily tempting. A rich chronicle of a celebrated career not yet in past tense. (50 b&w photos, not seen)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
