BOOKS

OCTOBER 13, 1995

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

PROGRESSIVE URBAN REAL ESTATE

PURE

A landmark in gay literary history

The City and the Pillar and Seven Early Stories by Gore Vidal

Random House, $24 hardcover

Reviewed by Timothy Robson Random House has reissued Gore Vidal's 1948 novel The City and the Pillar along with a collection of short stories written about the same time. For this book Vidal has written a new preface in which he outlines the genesis of the book and the scandal subsequent to its original publication, as well as its history over the last forty-odd years. Vidal's publisher at the time, E.P. Dutton,

hated the book. The New York Times refused to advertise it. Yet it became a bestseller. The twenty-year-old Vidal broke ground that few other authors dared to trod for another twenty years. No less a literary figure than Thomas Mann admired The City and the Pillar, making several entries in his diary about the book. The City and the Pillar is a landmark in gay literary history which should be read by all.

The plot is essentially simple. Jim Willard and Bob Ford are golden-boy athletes in upscale Virginia. Jim is drawn to Bob and on one summer night, in a cabin by the river, they consummate their lust. Jim becomes obsessed with Bob; in Vidal's own words in the preface to this new edition, "Unfortunately for Jim, Bob had other sexual plans, involving women and marriage." Jim takes off to the merchant marine, and the book follows his subsequent career as a kept boy in Hollywood, tennis pro, military man, and drunk. The tragic climax of the book occurs years later at a chance meeting between Bob and Jim in which Jim attempts to rekindle the old flame.

Gay novelists working today have much to learn from Vidal's lean, no-nonsense prose. The story is just as shocking as it must have been almost fifty years ago. These characters are fully-drawn, flawed individuals, some with few redeeming qualities. We now see, after decades of documentary evidence, that the portraits of closeted 1940s gay Hollywood were accurate.

The seven early stories were first published as a collection in 1956 under the title A Thirsty Evil. While not "gay stories" as such, each has homoerotic undertones: the young hustler and older gentlemen of means

in "Three Stratagems"; the unnamed firstperson narrator and the golden-haired youth in "A Moment of Green Laurel," filled with allusions to ancient Greece; the prep-school students dismissed just before graduation for unnamed activities so terrible they can't be described, and the sympathetic "bachelor" teacher who has to tell them the news, in "The Zenner Trophy." The stories are more light-hearted than The City and the Pillar; they complement each other well.

Every list of classic gay men's fiction contains The City and the Pillar. This reissue is a good reason to read this important novel, or, in my case, re-read it after twenty years. This is a visionary story for our time as well.

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