I did not want to like this book. It holds all the worst of a memoir – in particular that name-dropping approach that can get so tedious and the desire to go into occasionally excruciating detail over little things. But it is impossible to not like this book. In spite of sometimes lapsing into the errors that can befall any memoir, it has one redeeming quality – it is written about Gore Vidal.

Vidal brings his skills to bear telling the almost true story of his life. Up front he admits that any story based on memory will not be the absolute truth. Hence the name of the book (Palimpsest – meaning parchment prepared for writing on and wiping off again.) This affectation gets overused and does not frame the book as well as the author may have liked. In particular, his use of the word to indicate where he may have rewritten passages (to either get them right or to ignore them). And the author constantly derides others for not being accurate in their memories while he openly (again, the name of the book) admits his memory cannot always be correct.

But the book rises above these minor issues. Actually, the author rises above these issues. Because Vidal keeps us reading, even as we feel it may be a guilty pleasure. And just about the time I would start to think things were slowing down, he would shamelessly throw out another name (Kennedy, anyone? Anais Nin? Eleanor Roosevelt? Capote?) and drag me back in. At the end of it all – an engrossing telling of Vidal’s life the way Vidal remembers it. ( )