Memories of Gore Vidal

Year 2012, Issue: 35, 17 - 28, 01.06.2012

Jay Parini

Abstract

I find myself thinking of Vidal often, as he and I had a conversation that continued for over thirty years, and I learned a great deal from him. I miss these conversations very much. Our friendship began on the Amalfi Coast, where I rented in a small villa overlooking the Mediterranean. Above the villa hung on a cliffside an impressive villa on five stories, surrounded by fifteen acres of garden. I didn’t, at the time I moved there, know that Vidal lived nearby, although I asked the newsagent in the nearby village who owned the amazing house on the cliff, assuming it was some Italian nobleman or mafia capo. He said: “Gore Vidal, il maestro!”

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