man’s work are mesmerizing, since the
conundrum of Vidal’s personality (the
real subject of the book) is finally freed
of the constraining prism of sex. Of
course, onemust always remember that
theendof aman’s life isnotwhat the life
was about. In defendingWilliams’ repu-
tation against Dotson Rader’s memoir
(1985’s
Tennessee, Cry of theHeart
), in
fact, Vidal closes his reviewwith amo-
ment on the beach in Key West when
Williams turned toVidal andsaid, “I like
my life.”Vidal, likeWilliams, probably
enjoyedhis life too.Creative, successful,
at the top of their game, bothmenwere
protean figures whose equivalents have
so far not appeared.
Indeed, the grim final days, even as
described by a writer whose eye for de-
tail andear for thevividquoteareasgood
asTeeman’s, only increaseour senseofVidal as sacredmonster.
Hugely ambitious, morbidly competitive (on Capote’s death:
“Good career move”), determined to hector, and lecture, Vidal
playeda rarepart inAmerican life: thesourpuss, the fop(Clifton
Webb inOttoPreminger’s
Laura
), thearistocraticcontrarianwho
does not think this country is,
pace
Richard Nixon, the richest
andgreatest nation in theworld.H.L.Mencken(amanVidal ad-
mired) did something like this in the ’20s, and HenryAdams
(likewise)beforehim—thoughMenckenwasnot glamorous, and
Adamswas sohorrifiedbypublicity that hepublishedhisnovels
under apseudonymandhisautobiographyprivately.But all three
men likedpointingout theshortcomingsofwhatMenckencalled
“the booboisie.”Adams andVidal, moreover, spent a great deal
of time abroad,Adams in Paris, Vidal in Italy, where his house
highabove theAmalfi coastwas surelymeant as ageographical
expressionofhisalienationfromhisowncountry, ifnot a reprise
of Tiberius on Capri, summoning young men to the palazzo.
(Vidal,whohiredhustlersgalore inRome, scrupulouslyavoided
providinggossip to the inhabitants ofRavello.)
His residence in Italy alsobrought tomindVidal’s identifi-
cation with ancient Rome’s attitude toward sex, according to
which, so long as you were the penetrat
or
and not the pene-
trat
ed
, you retained your virility. All this may well have been
asmanufacturedapersonaas theone that theworld-wearycynic
SomersetMaughamcreated, an“armor” (theword friendsmost
oftenused) put on toprotect himself fromaworldwhichwould
have lookeddownonhimhadhebeenmerelya“fag.”But there
is no one who will play PetroniusArbiter toAmerica’s Nero
now. Vidal, who succeeded in somany forms—essay, novel,
theater, movies, television—was a critic, not just ofAmerican
homophobes, but ofAmericans ingeneral. (“Does anyone care
what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in
theFirstWorld. Theydon’t have any thoughts, theyhave emo-
tional responses, which good advertisers know how to pro-
voke.”) This iswhen hewasn’t pointing out thewholeworld’s
heterosexual problem: overpopulation.
DennisAltman remarks here thatVidal outlived his golden
age (the fifties and sixties); and it’s true that, toward the end,
even admirers like Christopher Hitchens turned on him as a
crank.AfterAusten’s death, he seemed
to simply fall apart—ironic,manypoint
out, for someone who had refused to
admit that Austen was anything more
than just a roommate. It was always
JimmyTrimble—thehandsomebaseball
starwhowas thesubject of
TheCityand
the Pillar
, the school chum who died
youngat IwoJima—whoVidal saidwas
thegreat loveof his life; thoughTeeman
suggests thatmayalsohavebeenamyth
Vidal created. Still, it’s interesting to
learn thatVidal isburiedbesideHoward
Austen in Washington’s Rock Creek
Cemetery, in a plot equidistant between
thegravesofTrimbleandHenryAdams.
It may be typical ofVidal’s ambition—
orpretentiousness—toassociatehimself
with a descendent of two presidents
whosepedigreeputVidal’s in the shade,
ahistorianwhowouldhavebeenhorrifiedbyVidal’spassion to
be onTV. But there are similarities. Bothmen found the poli-
tics of their time disgusting; bothwere critics of theAmerican
empire; andboth lived longenough to find themores theygrew
upwith extinct in their old age.
InTeeman’s book, thesemores are sexual.GoreVidal,who
refused tocall himself gay, lived toseenot onlygaywritersbut
also gay soldiers and gay marriage. In fact, he helped bring
these changes about.Yet
InBedWithGore Vidal
is a rich por-
trait of anAmerican forwhomsame-sex desirewas a problem
heworkedout so torturously as to remindone of another piece
of antiquity: Laocoön and his sons writhing in the snakes. It
would be easy to dismiss Teeman’s book as a guilty pleasure.
But these interviews, especially thosegiven in theheatedafter-
mathof aman’s longdecline anddeath—the hospital bed, you
sense, has just been takenout of the bedroom—create amany-
sidedportrait that is fascinating. It’sashame that somany typos,
grammatical errors, and even missing words break the spell.
Sometimes an anecdote contradicts the argument beingmade
in the paragraph it’s supposed to support, frequently one does-
n’t know towhoma pronoun refers, and at one point Teeman
describes something as “uniquely singular.” But that can’t di-
minish the fact that this is a treasure trove of biographical in-
formation that is not just about sex.
Reading Teeman, and re-readingVidal’s essays in the col-
lectioncalled
UnitedStates
(1995), is tobe remindednot onlyof
what a gift he had for theEnglish language but alsohowpissed
off hewas.Theonlyessays that aredevoidof anger are theones
hewroteonwriters andwriting.
InBedwithGoreVidal
is about
amanwhoadmittedhewas abully.Butwhether youadmire the
brilliant writer, or dismiss the “angry fag” (as a friend of mine
calledhim), thisbook, this cousin to the funeral lunch in
August,
OsageCounty
, is almost impossible to put down. Howcould it
not be,when its subject onceaskedavisitor tohishome inRav-
ello: “Do you knowwhat the difference is betweenAmerican
boys and Italianboys? Italianboyshavedirty feet andcleanass-
holes,whileAmericanboys have clean feet anddirtyassholes.”
Or, who said to friendswhen they asked himto be godfather to
their son, “Always a godfather, never a god”?
12
TheGay&LesbianReview
/
WORLDWIDE
Zayn,Harry,Niall, Liam,
andLouis vsOneOld
Codger, Blind as aBat
Until yesterday,
I thought theywere called
OneDimension
and admired themall the
more for it.
Opening yourself right up
toparody like that
is foolish,
but brave.
J
AMES
D
UFFICY
