Gore Vidal was a little weird though! He didn't really win literary awards, unlike Mailer, who won many, many awards. Vidal was an NBA finalist for Burr but that was about it. If anything, critics tended to sniff at his fiction because it was historical fiction - too genre - OR because it was *too* transgressive. The guy wrote the great gay novel in 1948 and the great trans novel in the late 1960s. He was too much, too soon for a lot of critics. His great gay novel, The City and the Pillar, got him blacklisted for a decade effectively.
You need to go down a Gore Vidal rabbit hole soon. You won't be disappointed.
Guess I'm going to read Louis L'Amour's memoir now. I love this post, and appreciate the work you put in because I saw his books all over the place growing up, and never read one or read anything about them before. (Yet, so much about Flowers in the Attic)
I wondered that too! You could probably say that about 'I am Charlotte Simmons' and 'Back to Blood,' but I'd guess maybe 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' still is relevant? (And surely 'The Right Stuff') And 'A Man in Full' was recently made into a Netflix series, I think. (Not that a TV show alone makes an author relevant -- though there was also a documentary about him released too, I think a Michael Lewis project, maybe?)
My real life bimonthly book club isn’t usually super highbrow, though we’ve read The Tale of Two Cities, Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Wuthering Heights this year. We read Roger Zelanzy’s “A Night In the Lonesome October” last month and it felt like kind of the perfect book club book (besides “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” which we also read this year). It seems like it’s up your alley? No idea if Zelanzy has other worthwhile books…
Another good read—very big picture, interesting and provocative. I am an early reader of the Drift. I found them sort of avant garde (whatever that means—which if I recall right they had a whole issue about) initially. You hit the nail on the head—now they strike me as more elitist. Given what they are, how could they not be. But bravo for them—always good to have another voice in print. As far as Flesh and buzzy literary novels, Sounds intriguing but faces much an uphill battle to reach my TBR. Trying to finish On the Calculation of Volume, book 2 today, Nov. 18. The NYT has discovered it. I found it long ago thanks to you or another substack book-lover.
Gore Vidal was a little weird though! He didn't really win literary awards, unlike Mailer, who won many, many awards. Vidal was an NBA finalist for Burr but that was about it. If anything, critics tended to sniff at his fiction because it was historical fiction - too genre - OR because it was *too* transgressive. The guy wrote the great gay novel in 1948 and the great trans novel in the late 1960s. He was too much, too soon for a lot of critics. His great gay novel, The City and the Pillar, got him blacklisted for a decade effectively.
You need to go down a Gore Vidal rabbit hole soon. You won't be disappointed.
I will have to yes :)
Feel like you'll rip through Burr.
Guess I'm going to read Louis L'Amour's memoir now. I love this post, and appreciate the work you put in because I saw his books all over the place growing up, and never read one or read anything about them before. (Yet, so much about Flowers in the Attic)
After reading this post, I downloaded that book as well.
Tom Wolfe has been forgotten?
I wondered that too! You could probably say that about 'I am Charlotte Simmons' and 'Back to Blood,' but I'd guess maybe 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' still is relevant? (And surely 'The Right Stuff') And 'A Man in Full' was recently made into a Netflix series, I think. (Not that a TV show alone makes an author relevant -- though there was also a documentary about him released too, I think a Michael Lewis project, maybe?)
Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction is more enduring and influential than his fiction.
Thomas Wolfe, yes. Not Tom! Two different writers.
She named both.
My real life bimonthly book club isn’t usually super highbrow, though we’ve read The Tale of Two Cities, Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Wuthering Heights this year. We read Roger Zelanzy’s “A Night In the Lonesome October” last month and it felt like kind of the perfect book club book (besides “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” which we also read this year). It seems like it’s up your alley? No idea if Zelanzy has other worthwhile books…
Another good read—very big picture, interesting and provocative. I am an early reader of the Drift. I found them sort of avant garde (whatever that means—which if I recall right they had a whole issue about) initially. You hit the nail on the head—now they strike me as more elitist. Given what they are, how could they not be. But bravo for them—always good to have another voice in print. As far as Flesh and buzzy literary novels, Sounds intriguing but faces much an uphill battle to reach my TBR. Trying to finish On the Calculation of Volume, book 2 today, Nov. 18. The NYT has discovered it. I found it long ago thanks to you or another substack book-lover.
“Much ambition, no respect” sounds like a lot of writers’ epitaphs!