The City and the Pillar {original}
by Gore Vidal
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Description
A literary "cause celebre" when first published more than fifty years ago, Gore Vidal's now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience. Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in "awful kid stuff," the experience forms Jim's ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents' expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. show more Along the way he struggles with what he feels is his unique bond with Bob and with his persistent attraction to other men. Upon finally encountering Bob years later, the force of his hopes for a life together leads to a devastating climax. The first novel of its kind to appear on the American literary landscape, The City and the Pillar" "remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of sexual relationships between men. show lessTags
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Author Information
Gore Vidal was born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal Jr. on October 3, 1925 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. He did not go to college but attended St. Albans School in Washington and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1943. He enlisted in the Army, where he became first mate on a freight supply ship in the show more Aleutian Islands. His first novel, Williwaw, was published in 1946 when he was twenty-one years old and working as an associate editor at the publishing company E. P. Dutton. The City and the Pillar was about a handsome, athletic young Virginia man who gradually discovers that he is homosexual, which caused controversy in the publishing world. The New York Times refused to advertise the novel and gave a negative review of it and future novels. He had such trouble getting subsequent novels reviewed that he turned to writing mysteries under the pseudonym Edgar Box and then gave up novel-writing altogether for a time. Once he moved to Hollywood, he wrote television dramas, screenplays, and plays. His films included I Accuse, Suddenly Last Summer with Tennessee Williams, Is Paris Burning? with Francis Ford Coppola, and Ben-Hur. His most successful play was The Best Man, which he also adapted into a film. He started writing novels again in the 1960's including Julian, Washington, D.C., Myra Breckenridge, Burr, Myron, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood, Live From Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal, and The Golden Age. He also published two collections of essays entitled The Second American Revolution, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1982 and United States: Essays 1952-1992. In 2009, he received the National Book Awards lifetime achievement award. He died from complications of pneumonia on July 31, 2012 at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards and Honors
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Tascabili [Fazi] (120)
Guild Press Ltd. (H. Lynn Womack) (NO. P-20)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The City and the Pillar {original}
- Original title
- The City and the Pillar
- Original publication date
- 1948
- People/Characters
- Jim Willard; Bob Ford; Ronald Shaw; Paul Sullivan; Maria Verlaine
- Important places
- Richmond, Virginia, USA; New York, New York, USA; Merida, Yucatán, Mexico; Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
- Epigraph
- But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt.
--GENESIS 19:26 - Dedication
- For the memory of J.T.
- First words
- The moment was strange.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Soon he would move on.
- Original language*
- Inglese
- Disambiguation notice
- This LT Work is Vidal's original 1948 novel, The City and the Pillar.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, LGBTQ+
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PZ3 .V6668 — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction in English
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 207
- Popularity
- 157,847
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.57)
- Languages
- 6 — Danish, Dutch, English, Greek, Italian, Polish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 17
