Gore Vidal as reflective tangent

Some words on Gore Vidal, since he often comes to mind around this time of year.

As you may have noticed from recent BRG posts, I’ve been at the Hay festival a bit this last week, and as often happens, I will at some point get into a conversation about my greatest highlights. I’ve been going to the festival since 1996. I don’t think I’ve missed a year (aside from Covid, and in 2021 when I was working elsewhere for the duration at the beautiful and now gone St David’s Festival in Pembrokeshire). I have seen so many wonderful writers in that time I could never attempt to remember them all. Beryl Bainbridge, Wole Soyinka, Norman Mailer, David Lodge, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison - that’s a sprinkling off the top of my head (something of dandruff list, if you like).

I don’t have a number one, but if I am ever asked, I often go for Gore Vidal. Vidal was a huge influence on me as a writer of non-fiction, and seeing him in the flesh was something, for this crusty old atheist at least, not far off a religious experience. So for today’s BRG, I’m going to reflect a little on what he means to me.