Teeman’s real scoop is the latter. The
strangest thing aboutVidal’s final years, to
thosewho followedhim,was that, although
weknewhewas alive, that he’d returned to
L.A. so that hispartner (thoughVidalwould
never use that word) could get medical care, Vidal was com-
pletely silent. He was not on TV, he was not writing essays or
publishing novels. Instead, we learn here, hewas so devastated
by the loss ofAusten that he became a complete drunk, which,
alongwithdiabetes, led toparanoia, dementia, and thealcoholic
terminus called wet brain, whichmay explain his bequeathing
his entire 37-million-dollar estate to Harvard University even
thoughVidal despised academics (“scholar-squirrels”) and felt
insecure about never havinggone tocollege. (Hewas a true au-
todidact, as anyonewho’s readhis essays can see.)But thepeo-
plewhodevotedlycared for himgot nothing.Was thisdementia
or sheer meanness? It’s hard to say. “I’m exactly as I appear,”
Vidal said. “There is nowarm, lovable person inside. Beneath
my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find coldwater.”
Afewpages later aclose friendconfirms: “Gorewas reallycold:
a really cold, cold fish.” Indeed, the only people who say nice
thingsaboutVidal in thisbook(besidesBowers) all happen tobe
straight women: Susan Sarandon, Claire Bloom, and Joanne
Woodward.
The truth is therewas noone inbedwithGoreVidal for the
last years of his life except his cat; and after the cat died, he
lasted only sixmonths. In otherwords, though the bulk of this
book is about his sex life, at the end therewasn’t any, as there
isn’t formost oldpeople, andso thiserotichistorydevolves into
a book about other aspects ofVidal: his relationswith caretak-
ers and friends, his concern for his place on the pecking order
of celebrity-hood, his feelings about literary immortality. He
was contradictory even on the latter. Shakespeare, he told a
friend, would not have cared about the fact that his plays are
still being performed; yet Vidal, says Jay Parini, “would say,
‘Thegreat eraserhas struckagain,’whensomething likeapiece
in
The New York Review of Books
about historical novels ran
but didn’t mention his.” He even (after mistakenly swigging
fromacarafeof oliveoil he thoughtwaswine) blurted toaned-
itor whose writers included both Vidal and EdmundWhite:
“Youwantme todiesoyourwriterEdmundWhitewill beKing
Fag!”—a bizarre remarkon several levels.
Even now, it’s hard to knowwhether Vidal’s refusal to be
called gaywas an intellectual conviction or shame over being
homosexual—or simply anger that his country considered
shameful somethinghe felt noguilt about at all.But hewas liv-
ing in a time when the word “fag” was usedwithout apology.
WatchonYouTube the famousmoment at the1968Democratic
convention inChicagowhenVidal calledWilliamF. Buckley,
Jr., a “crypto-Nazi,” and Buckley in return called Vidal a
“queer”whomhewanted topunch in the face.Vidal’sarrogance
is so oleaginous that one understands why Buckleywanted to
deckhim; though it’shard tosaywhichmanseems likemoreof
aqueen—sincebothmadeacareerofplaying18th-centuryaris-
tocrats to a middle-class TV audience. But when Buckley’s
upper lipdrawsbackhe looksexactly likeaDobermanpinscher
about to ripVidal’s throat—a loss of control that only induces
Vidal’s lips tocurl intoa smileat havingsuccessfullyprovoked
the enemy. Of course, this led to a lawsuit. Vidal suedTruman
Capote, aswell, andwas assaultedbyNor-
manMailer at a party.Writers were more
pugnacious then—machismo was in the
air—whichexplains tosomedegreeVidal’s
career.
The last chapters of
InBedwithGoreVidal
give theopposite
impression, however; they’remore likeKing Lear in theHolly-
wood Hills. They bring to mind the last years of Somerset
Maugham, or NormaDesmond in
Sunset Boulevard
. In the epi-
logue,TeemanevendescribesVidal’shome inRavello, Italy, after
it’s been sold in away that echoes the opening of BillyWilder’s
famous film: “The pool, once the site of parties and suppers, is
nowfilledwithdead fishwithbruisedpurplebacks hoveringbe-
neath the darkgreen surface.”All of this threatens tooverwhelm
everythingwe’ve learned about Vidal’s life in chapters like “La
DolceVita,”whichdealswith theyearsVidal andAusten livedso
happily inRome,wheneverythingwasgoingwell and therewere
lots of hustlers, aperiodwhich is also the subject ofVidal’smar-
velous essayonhis friendTennesseeWilliams, “SomeMemories
of theGloriousBird and anEarlier Self.”
Vidalwrote twoessays aboutWilliams, and in the second—
“Someone to Laugh at the SquaresWith”—he heaps contempt
onbiographerswho“emphasize thehorrorsof the last years”of
a writer “because the genre requires that they produceACau-
tionaryTale.”Teeman’sbook isbasednot onlyonconversations
withVidal’scaretakers; heuseseverythingfromChristopher Ish-
erwood’s diaries to talks with former editors and friends who
knewhim long before his dotage. But the last chapters of Tee-
InBedwithGoreVidal
byTimTeeman
MagnusBooks.283pages,$19.99
May–June 2014
11
