![]() Like other critics, Parini believes Vidal’s essays surpassed his other work. ![]() The goals are exposition and elucidation, and he achieves them gracefully. ![]() He tells us about each of Vidal’s major works (and the major reviews thereof) but never in prose choked with jargon or self-importance. Parini is a wise general biographer of a literary figure. They range from amusing to deeply moving. Parini precedes each chapter with a vignette, a focused memory from his own experiences with Vidal. Like many other fine artists, Vidal worked until he could no longer do so. ![]() But so do others, as the author ably shows: Vidal was generous, brilliant, assiduous, and innovative. Petty, jealous, judgmental, and imperious-all applied to him. They became fast friends as well as professional colleagues, though Parini continually reminds readers of Vidal’s often difficult personality. Jesus: The Human Face of God, 2013, etc.) met his subject in the mid-1980s, and he begins his chronicle with that encounter. ![]() Poet, novelist, and biographer Parini (English/Middlebury Coll. An intimate but unblinking look at Gore Vidal (1925-2012), the gifted essayist, playwright, novelist, and public personality, who, for a time, seemed ubiquitous in the popular culture. ![]()
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