Life out loudAs a public intellectual, Gore Vidal was snobbish and hypersensitive, but so eloquent Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal. By Jay Parini. Penguin Random House; 480 pages; $35. Published in the UK as “Every Time A Friend Succeeds Something Inside Me Dies: The Life of Gore Vidal”. Little, Brown; £25. “NEVER lose an opportunity to have sex or be on television” is a familiar Gore Vidal q
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