Here's a mess of a life recounted in a mess of a book.
In case we don't believe that the title, In Bed with Gore Vidal, doesn't mean exactly what it says, the book is subtitled Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master (Magnus Books, paper, $19.99). As promised, this first effort from journalist Tim Teeman takes us not only between the sheets, but most explicitly between the legs of the celebrated Mr. Vidal, as well as of a raft of performers, politicos, pimps and prostitutes, as it recounts Vidal's sexuality and sexual exploits. If scurrilous gossip is your dish, here's a couple tureens worth. All of it verified by multiple sources.
It was hard to be a healthy homo in the McCarthy era, when Vidal came of age, and Vidal was conflicted about his sexuality. It didn't help that he was simultaneously courageous and foolhardy when in 1948 he published his first novel, the undeniably gay The City and the Pillar. It defined him as a gay man, which caused Vidal to spend his lifetime in denial.
After constructing a public image of the way he wanted to be, and concocting a philosophy of sexuality that excused his homosexuality, Vidal came to believe his own fictions, and was stuck within them for life. The result was an unhappy, cynical, self-destructive man. One with a rather insatiable sex drive.
Author Teeman has been an editor and feature writer for The Times of London, most recently as their US correspondent, and a prolific celebrity profiler. In his first book, he guides us through a sexual lifetime, with chapters devoted chronologically to Vidal's family life, his first love, his carousing with Hollywood stars, and his decades-long living arrangement with the man he would never acknowledge as his spouse.
Sympathy and compassion are raised as Teeman details the long marriage, along with news of Vidal's contribution to gay politics. It would be humanly impossible not to grieve as one reads of Vidal's long decline and sorry death. Ultimately, we see a man who is to be praised for his courage, and blamed, perhaps not overly much, for his cowardice. Teeman tells a story that's hair-raising and heart-rending.
While it's commendable that In Bed with Gore Vidal raises pity and understanding for Gore Vidal as it dishes out the sordid details, it's pitiable that it's done in such a sloppily organized and badly edited book (if it was edited at all). Author Teeman lauds the nearly-legendary Don Weise for editing the book, yet if Weise got within a mile of the transcript, I feel sorry for his waning talent. The book is repetitive beyond endurance, freighted with clumsy and confusing syntax, and exhibits a total ignorance on the usage of commas. Yet for the history it contains, for the amount of pertinent information it adds to the record, it should be imperative for both historians and fans. Too bad that for the haphazard way it has been organized, edited and published, it will perhaps be dismissed, ignored, or relegated to the shelves way at the back.