How Gore Vidal Helped a Young, Unknown Writer

Many stories will be told about Gore Vidal in the coming days. Here is one that reveals the generous character of the man.

In 1998 I wrote a novel about a secret society in the Navy. With no literary connections, I was at a loss about what to do next. The writers I most admired were Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. Gore Vidal was the only one still alive, so I wrote to him and asked if he would read my novel.

I knew you could write a letter to a writer care of his or her publisher, not that I had ever done that before, but in Vidal’s case I actually knew his address. He lived in a villa in Ravello, Italy. I addressed my request to Gore Vidal, La Rondinaia, Ravello, Italy. I had no real expectation that a letter so vaguely addressed would reach him and, even if it did, that he would agree to read my book. Vidal was at the height of his fame and was, no doubt, constantly asked to review books by real published authors and to give them his imperial approval.

A blue airmail envelope promptly appeared in my mailbox with a very short note inside from Gore Vidal asking me to send the manuscript to him. I sent the typewritten novel to him immediately and life stopped while I waited for him to write to me again.

Amazingly, he read my book as soon as he received it and wrote back to me that it was quite a story, with all sorts of reverberations. Its staccato style and short chapters reminded him of an old fashioned screen treatment (Vidal was also a screewriter), but he wasn’t sure who might be interested in publishing it. He suggested I write to a film producer he had worked with and tell the producer that Gore thought he would like the book.

The secret society in my novel (The Great Lovers) is named for a poem by Rupert Brooke, and the characters worship that British poet, once known as the handsomest man in England. Gore wrote that Brooke’s girlfriend Cathleen Nesbitt had appeared in two of his plays, dished about her and said that she was fascinating on the topic of Brooke. Here I was corresponding with my icon who had a personal connection to the literary icon my characters revered.

Gore said he was sure I would get a response from the movie producer, and he was not wrong. The producer also asked me to send the manuscript, thought it was wonderful (Hollywood hyperbole) but, at that time, military court-room dramas were out of favor and he didn’t feel as though he could interest a studio in it. Separately, I had signed with a literary agent, but Gore was correct that it would be a hard book to sell to a publisher. I stopped counting after it was rejected by a dozen.

I wonder now what it was about my novel that inspired Gore Vidal to devote his very valuable reading time to it. He was born in West Point, served in the army and his play The Best Man has a back story about an investigation at a military base. He also wrote the screenplay for Dress Grey, about a murder at West Point. So perhaps it was the military milieu that intrigued him. Or maybe it was the fact that the characters in the book are court-martialed for mutiny. The New York Times obituary today points out that Vidal loved conspiracy theories, particularly ones that involved him. One clue is that he wrote to me that court-martials for ridiculous reasons are all too common.

I wrote a few more times to update him on my lack of success with publishers and producers, but eventually our correspondence ended. Although I continued to write fiction, I went to law school not long afterwards. Although no one else in the world called me a writer, I continued to call myself one thanks to Gore Vidal.

That is why when, just a few months ago, I finally published the novel Gore Vidal read and championed in 1998 (Trial of Honor: A Novel of a Court Martial), I dedicated it to Gore Vidal, who wrote so lucidly about honor, both personal and national. His generous response to me, a young writer offering his work to his hero, reveals the warm heart beating within the prickly literary lion.