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Palimpsest: A Memoir | 
| Author: Gore Vidal
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $27.49 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 251394
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st ed
Pages: 435
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 7 x 1.8
ISBN: 0679440380
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.5409
EAN: 9780679440383
ASIN: 0679440380
Publication Date: October 3, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
A candid memoir of Vidal's first 40 years of life. His famous skills as a raconteur, his forthrightness, and his wicked wit are brilliantly at work in these recollections of a difficult family, talented friends, and interesting enemies.
Book Description
This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal's compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author's celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters--including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt. of photos.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
 The Scandalous, Opinionated, & Touching Recollections of an American Man of Letters. May 2, 2008
Gore Vidal is careful to call "Palimpsest" a "memoir", not an "autobiography". These are the first 39 years of his life as he remembers them -in more ways than one. His memories are not in chronological order, but start with his half-sister's wedding in 1957 and bounce around, through his childhood, youth, his family, politics, acquaintances, sex life, and writing career, sometimes doubling back on itself or jumping to the present in Ravello, Italy 1993-1994. "Palimpsest" is a perfect title, as it describes what memoirists do, consciously or unconsciously, literally and figuratively: They overwrite the past. Vidal alerts us to his palimpsests whenever he discards what he previously wrote.
Though the gist of Vidal's political progression leftward from reactionary youth to socialist to vehement anti-interventionist comes across, "Palimpsest" is not about politics. It's about people: the author and those who most shaped his experiences. Among them were: Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Anais Nin, Tennessee Williams, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, and Paul Bowles. The grandson of Senator T.P. Gore, Vidal moved in aristocratic, artistic, and political circles. He was well-connected, to say the least, and he offers interesting tidbits about the people he met and the conclusions he drew. He says next to nothing about his companion of 44 years, Howard Auster.
The "unfinished business" of a youthful love affair with a man who died at Iwo Jima and The Kennedys are overriding themes -though it is difficult to know if Vidal speaks so much of the Kennedys because they are the public's preoccupation or his own. The persistent memory of Jimmie is both surprising and moving, a reminder of how our youth, especially things left undone, haunts us. Some readers will be turned off either by Vidal's social mores or by his heretical politics. I would simply say about his lifestyle that he is not middle class. I don't always agree with his politics, but I have to give him credit for judging his friends even more harshly than his enemies. Gore Vidal is astute about people, if not politics, and he's a superb wordsmith. I thoroughly enjoyed "Palimpsest".
 Ah, Gore, How I Love Thee January 25, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Yes, he can be considered an acquired taste. Yes, people have been known to love to hate him. Nonetheless, I found this book to be the equivalent of leaning back against a mossy riverbank, slightly inebriated, the sun burning orange against your lids, your empty martini glass beside you, as you hazily feel a peculiar sense of well-being whilst half-heartedly listening to your friends' chatter from the garden chairs in the back of your estate on the Hudson. You know, your gloriously talented, monied, witty, tenderly human, deliciously flawed friends who are the shining lights of the arts, politics, and "society"(old use of the word). In short, the usual yummy, witty, and erudite set of characters and anecdotes comprising G.V.'s rich and eventful life. As an additional, totally unexpected surprise, he also gives us a beautiful and mockery-free account of his first love. May not be for the sensibility of everyone, but I gulped the book down like a caviar blini with sour cream at the old Russian Tearoom. Dear Gore, he is getting up there in years and I don't know how much longer we'll have him with us, enraging and delighting us lesser mortals, but I, for one, fully expect to dress in deep mourning when he finally chooses to move on.
For those of you who keep a diary... October 19, 2007
...have you ever had the experience of looking back at what you wrote and practically cringing at your own attempts to dissemble? This book reads that way. You feel held at arms length; the narrator is cool and distant, yet you feel so close to him it's almost uncomfortable.
There's an interesting tension between shielding your soul from people while at the same time longing for them to know every single thing about you -- what do you mean, your "fax machine has become a time machine." What are you talking about?? You don't need to make excuses to talk about your high school sweetheart; we were *hoping* you would.
Anyway, the events of this book were not very exciting to me, but Vidal's explanation of himself is really something. He does things most memoirists can't. It's very good.
 Great in Parts, Weak as a Whole August 28, 2007
The juicy bits are marvelous, like Tennesee Williams happily commenting on JFK's figure and Gore confronting Bobby K. The early years, in particular the stories about Gore's grandfather the blind senator, are deeply touching. But then this memoir flits from one big name to another, one celebrity to the next, without offering much understanding or coherence. It becomes repetitious. It does not measure up to Gore's essays, let alone his wonderful historical novels. But it's a good enough read if you're curious about the cast characters, including literary figures from the mid-20th century as well as various members of the Kennedy clan. There is even a bit about Hilary Clinton visiting Gore's house on a cliff in Italy--one of the duller sections of the book. If you're new to Gore, better go to Burr or Lincoln and then follow the series through 1876, Empire and Hollywood. Or start with Julian, a fictional take on the last great Roman pagan, and a unique reading experience.
An Amazing Life May 21, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Jackie Kennedy's step-brother shares the story of his extraordinary life, from his first love at age 18, through the age of 39.
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