Washington, D.C. a novel
The sixth novel in his Narratives of Empire series of historical novels (although the first one published), it begins in 1937 and continues into the Cold War, tracing the families of Senator James Burden Day and influential newspaper publisher Blaise Sanford. Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comm...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Boston :
Little, Brown and Company,
[1967]
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Series: | Vidal, Gore, 1925-2012. American chronicle.
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| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | The sixth novel in his Narratives of Empire series of historical novels (although the first one published), it begins in 1937 and continues into the Cold War, tracing the families of Senator James Burden Day and influential newspaper publisher Blaise Sanford. Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comment on how the American political system degrades those who participate in it, Washington, D.C. is a stunning tale of corruption and diseased ambitions. It traces the fortunes of James Burden Day, a powerful conservative senator who is eyeing the presidency; Clay Overbury, a pragmatic young congressional aide with political aspirations of his own; and Blaise Sanford, a ruthless newspaper tycoon who understands the importance of money and image in modern politics. |
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| Item Description: | The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture. |
| Physical Description: | 377 pages ; 24 cm |
| ISBN: | 0375708774 9780375708770 |
| Author Notes: | 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) |
