Frontdesk by David Waggoner

The month of August can mean different things to different readers. For some, it’s about reading the latest fifty-pound novel, almost as heavy as an entire beachbag. For others, it could mean a sliver of a book, like Death In Venice by Thomas Mann. For others it might be a book of poetry, or essays, or a satchel of glossy magazines. In any event, this issue of A&U is also about reading: Keith McDermott, John J. Mundt, Wayne Scheer, and Mary Kathryn Vernon. Or getting to know Gore Vidal. As America’s premier gay lit novelist, historian, and social critic, Mr. Vidal has always courted controversy from his earliest days. From The City and the Pillar to running for the Senate from California, Vidal has flourished on the cutting edge of everything that I admire in an intellectual—one who’s not afraid to take action and make a little bit of social history while doing it. While August is usually reserved for light reading, and most magazines suffer from lighter readerships, A&U’s readers are, if anything, more diligent about catching up on the latest AIDS news while also catching a few rays of literary enlightenment.

Gore Vidal is probably America’s greatest critic—not so much of other people’s words, but of many politicians’ misdeeds and chicanery. As a civil historian, literary maverick, and erudite essayist, Vidal has created a career both vital and abnormal. This is not a perjorative term for Vidal’s activism; it’s more an attempt to validate his accomplishment. Although his books have appeared regularly atop the bestseller lists for half a century, they are not without their shortsighted critics. The titles are enough to bring back fond memories for at least three generations of readers: The City and the Pillar (the gay-themed novel that caused The New York Times to ban all discussion of Vidal’s work for five years); Myra Breckinridge (Vidal’s groundbreaking satirical novel); Lincoln (one of the greatest historical novels written in the English language); and countless volumes of essays, including Imperial America (recently published and ignored by Republicans and Democrats alike).

For years, Gore Vidal’s vision of America may have been skewed slightly to the left of almost everyone writing and reading in English in this country, but his intelligence has been allied with the dozens of gay rights and AIDS advocacy groups that have sprung up since the so-called Reagan Revolution and its era of intolerance and ignorance, tomfoolery, and general lack of manners. Mark Twain might not have understood today’s America; H.L. Mencken would have been befuddled; but someone as lighthearted and decidedly unvicious as today’s politically incorrect critic, Jon Stewart, is more than likely to applaud Mr. Vidal’s ascension into the literary pantheon. Both political pundit and serious historian, Vidal is a man whose sense of the history of human fallibility—or the roundedness of things—would appeal to anyone with even an ounce of common decency. In this era of Enrons and ennui, Vidal’s literary achievements and historical pungency would have many weaker minds running for their dictionaries. Jefferson, Lincoln, Burr, and other visionary Americans have been the center of Vidal’s literary output; his great men have been ours too.

Thinking for one’s self is the most vital act of civil or literary disobedience for America is saturated with electronic media. It takes mere words to paint an accurate picture of an era. And a nation.

That is why A&U is honored to publish the latest insights of such a distrusting mind as the one we love as Gore Vidal’s. May his wit and wisdom instruct us to take ourselves less seriously.

August 2005