Editing Gore Vidal (section)

===Fiction===
[[File:GoreVidal2008.jpg|thumb|Vidal at the [[Los Angeles Times Festival of Books]], 2008]]

Vidal's literary career began with the success of the [[military novel]] [[Williwaw (Vidal novel)|''Williwaw'']], a men-at-war story derived from his [[Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears, U.S. Army|Alaskan Harbor Detachment]] duty during the Second World War.<ref>Vidal, Gore. ''The City and the Pillar and Seven Early Stories'' (NY: Random House), p. xiii.</ref> His third novel, ''[[The City and the Pillar]]'' (1948), caused a moralistic furor over his dispassionate presentation of a young protagonist coming to terms with his homosexuality.<ref name=Freethinker0812/> The novel was dedicated to "J. T."; decades later, Vidal confirmed that the initials were those of his boyhood friend and St. Albans classmate, James Trimble III, killed in the [[Battle of Iwo Jima]] on March 1, 1945, and that Trimble was the only person he ever loved.<ref name="ESPN-14-mar-2002">Roberts, James. "[https://www.espn.com/espn/print?id=1351570&type=page2Story The Legacy of Jimmy Trimble] ", ESPN, March 14, 2002.</ref><ref name="Independent-25-may-2008">Chalmers, Robert. "[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/gore-vidal-literary-feuds-his-vicious-mother-and-rumours-of-a-secret-love-child-832525.html Gore Vidal: Literary feuds, his 'vicious' mother and rumours of a secret love child] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120614230531/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/gore-vidal-literary-feuds-his-vicious-mother-and-rumours-of-a-secret-love-child-832525.html |date=June 14, 2012 }}", ''The Independent'', May 25, 2008.</ref> Critics railed against Vidal's presentation of homosexuality in the novel as natural, as it was viewed generally at the time as unnatural and immoral.<ref name=Freethinker0812/> Vidal claimed that ''New York Times'' critic [[Orville Prescott]] was so offended by the book that he refused to review or to permit other critics to review any book by Vidal.<ref>Vidal, Gore. ''Point to Point Navigation'' (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 245</ref> Vidal said that upon publication of the book, an editor at [[E. P. Dutton]] told him "You will never be forgiven for this book. Twenty years from now, you will still be attacked for it."<ref name=Freethinker0812/> Today, Vidal is often seen as an early champion of [[sexual liberation]].<ref>[http://www.consulfrance-losangeles.org/spip.php?article547 Décoration de l'écrivain Gore Vidal].{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081013002425/http://www.consulfrance-losangeles.org/spip.php?article547 |date=October 13, 2008 }}</ref>

Vidal took the pseudonym "Edgar Box" and wrote the mystery novels ''Death in the Fifth Position'' (1952), ''Death before Bedtime'' (1953) and ''Death Likes it Hot'' (1954) featuring Peter Cutler Sargeant II, a publicist-turned-private-eye. His satirical novel ''[[Messiah (Vidal novel)|Messiah]]'', detailing the rise of a new [[nontheistic religion]] that comes to largely replace the [[Abrahamic faiths]], was also published in 1954. The Edgar Box genre novels sold well and earned the blacklisted Vidal a secret living.<ref>''The Boston Globe'': [https://web.archive.org/web/20111127004526/http://articles.boston.com/2011-03-25/ae/29352611_1_novels-mysteries-paperback Diane White, "Murder, He Wrote, Before Becoming a Man of Letters", 25 March 2011]. Retrieved July 11, 2011 </ref><ref>Vidal, Gore. "Introduction to ''Death in the Fifth Position''{{-"}}, in Edgar Box, ''Death in the Fifth Position'' (Vintage, 2011), pp. 5–6.</ref> That mystery-novel success led Vidal to write in other genres, where he produced the stage play ''[[The Best Man (play)|The Best Man: A Play about Politics]]'' (1960) and the television play ''[[Visit to a Small Planet]]'' (1957). Two early teleplays were ''A Sense of Justice'' (1955) and ''Honor''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Philco Television Playhouse: A Sense of Justice (TV)|url=http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Goodyear+Television+Playhouse&p=1&item=T:40573|work=The Paley Center for Media|access-date=January 1, 2013|archive-date=August 26, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826181908/http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=Goodyear+Television+Playhouse&p=1&item=T:40573|url-status=live}}</ref> He also wrote the pulp novel ''Thieves Fall Out'' under the pseudonym Cameron Kay but refused to have it reprinted under his real name during his life.<ref name="thieves">{{Citation|last= Bayard|first= Louis|title= Review: Gore Vidal's 'Thieves Fall Out', Where Pulp Fiction and Hard Reality Met|work= [[The New York Times]]|date= April 12, 2015|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/books/review-gore-vidals-thieves-fall-out-where-pulp-fiction-and-hard-reality-met.html|access-date= April 12, 2015|archive-date= April 13, 2015|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150413035059/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/books/review-gore-vidals-thieves-fall-out-where-pulp-fiction-and-hard-reality-met.html|url-status= live}}</ref>

In the 1960s, Vidal published [[Julian (novel)|''Julian'']] (1964), about the Roman Emperor [[Julian the Apostate]] (r. A.D. 361–363), who sought to reinstate [[polytheism|polytheistic paganism]] when Julian viewed that Christianity threatened the cultural integrity of the Roman Empire; [[Washington, D.C. (novel)|''Washington, D.C.'']] (1967), about political life during the presidential era of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (1933–1945); and ''[[Myra Breckinridge]]'' (1968), a satire of the American movie business, by way of a school of dramatic arts owned by a [[transsexual]] woman, the eponymous anti-heroine.

After publishing the plays [[Weekend (play)|''Weekend'']] (1968) and ''[[An Evening With Richard Nixon]]'' (1972) and the novel ''Two Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir'' (1970), Vidal concentrated upon the essay and developed two types of fiction. The first type is about American history, novels specifically about the nature of national politics.<ref name="NYTimes -7-jul-1970">{{cite news|author=Leonard, John|author-link=John Leonard (critic)|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/vidal-sisters.html|title=Not Enough Blood, Not Enough Gore|work=The New York Times|date=July 7, 1970|access-date=October 30, 2008|archive-date=April 10, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090410073540/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/vidal-sisters.html|url-status=live}}</ref> ''The New York Times'', quoting critic Harold Bloom about those historical novels, said that "Vidal's imagination of American politics is so powerful as to compel awe."<ref name=NYTobit /> The historical novels formed the seven-book series [[Narratives of Empire]]: (i) ''[[Burr (novel)|Burr]]'' (1973), (ii) ''[[Lincoln (novel)|Lincoln]]'' (1984), (iii) ''[[1876 (novel)|1876]]'' (1976), (iv) ''[[Empire (Vidal novel)|Empire]]'' (1987), (v) ''[[Hollywood (Vidal novel)|Hollywood]]'' (1990), (vi) ''Washington, D.C.'' (1967), and (vii) ''[[The Golden Age (Gore Vidal novel)|The Golden Age]]'' (2000). Besides U.S. history, Vidal also explored and analyzed the history of the ancient world, specifically the [[Axial Age]] (800–200 B.C.), with the novel ''[[Creation (novel)|Creation]]'' (1981). The novel was published without four chapters that were part of the manuscript he submitted to the publisher; years later, Vidal restored the chapters to the text and republished the novel ''Creation'' in 2002.

The second type of fiction is the topical satire, such as ''[[Myron (novel)|Myron]]'' (1974), the sequel to ''Myra Breckinridge''; ''[[Kalki (novel)|Kalki]]'' (1978), about the end of the world and the consequent ennui; ''[[Duluth (novel)|Duluth]]'' (1983), an [[Parallel universe (fiction)|alternate universe]] story; ''[[Live from Golgotha]]'' (1992), about the adventures of Timothy, Bishop of Macedonia, in the early days of Christianity; and ''[[Smithsonian Institution (novel)|The Smithsonian Institution]]'' (1998), a time-travel story.