American essayist, writer, political activist and raconteur, 84-year-old Gore Vidal has spent his days rubbing elbows with the elite, from distant cousin Jimmy Carter and the Kennedy clan his mother married into, to Hollywood royalty like Paul Newman and Jack Nicholson. Vidal’s world was chronicled in pictures by the love of his life, Howard Austen, whom he met in 1950. The couple spent 53 years jet-setting between Vidal’s 5,000 square-foot villa in Italy and his California home, where the writer still lives today. Austen died in 2003 and Vidal — making good on an old promise — has published the best of his companion’s candid snapshots of the writer and his celebrated circle of friends. “Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History’s Glare” (Abrams), out this month, offers an intimate look at Vidal’s private life — from his Midwestern childhood to the height of his success in the ’60s and ’70s, along with Gore’s own commentary.
Gore Vidal: snapshots
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Ginger Adams Otis
Published
Oct. 18, 2009, 4:24 a.m. ET