Listen Now Access the recordings of Gore Vidal's program. Club Introduction Read the transcript of the club introduction of Gore Vidal. Club Conversation Read the transcript of Wendy Lesser's conversation with Gore Vidal. Related Links Our guide to the best links related to this program.

Club Introduction

It is my pleasure to introduce one of America's most highly regarded authors and political activists. When Gore Vidal ran for Congress in New York in 1960, he said, "I say 80 percent of what I think, a hell of a lot more than any politician I know." Gore Vidal has shared so many of his thoughts with us in the past half century that I doubt that he is holding back that other 20 percent any longer. In 24 novels, more than 200 essays, five plays, one book of short stories and one memoir, he has told us more about America than any of our full-time politicians could ever hope to achieve. His works have always managed that difficult task of saying something important and still saying it well. He is not, of course, easy to pigeonhole. As one critic has written, Vidal is "a living dialectical synthesis, a populace patrician, a ruthless critic of politics who ran for public office, a patriot who is an expatriate, and a mocker of pop culture who spends a lot of time in Hollywood." The grandson of T.P. Gore, senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Vidal has always been in politics, and ran in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 1982 from California, finishing second in a field of nine. In fact, Vice President Albert Gore is his distant cousin. Talking to reporters during the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles this summer, Mr. Vidal said, "I do believe they are nominating the wrong Gore".

His works have been widely appreciated both by the public and by the critics, from The City and The Pillar to Myra Breckenridge to the American Chronicle series that includes Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C. His 1959 play, "The Best Man," which is about the days leading up to a national political convention, is in revival on Broadway and is receiving strong reviews. We are here tonight on the occasion of the publication of the latest of Mr. Vidal's historical novels. The new novel, entitled The Golden Age, is a vivid portrayal of American political and cultural life from 1939 to 1954, when the events of World War II and the Cold War transformed America, once and for all in Vidal's view, from a republic to an empire. Please join me in giving a rousing Commonwealth Club welcome to Mr. Gore Vidal. Mr. Vidal.

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