Sympathy for the Devil: Four Decades of Friendship with Gore Vidal

A generous, entertaining, intimate look at Gore Vidal, a man who prided himself on being difficult to know

Detached and ironic; a master of the pointed put-down, of the cutting quip; enigmatic, impossible to truly know: This is the calcified, public image of Gore Vidal—one the man himself was fond of reinforcing. "I'm exactly as I appear," he once said of himself. "There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water."

Michael Mewsha...