'Where are the readers?'

 

“I didn't mean to spend my life writing American history, which should have been taught in the schools, but I saw no alternative but to taking it on myself. I could think of a lot of cheerier things I'd rather be doing than analyzing George Washington and Aaron Burr. But it came to pass, that was my job, so I did it.” – Gore Vidal

 

Born at West Point, NY on this date in 1925 (his father was a military officer serving as the first instructor of aeronautics in the Military Academy’s history at the time), Vidal became one of the most well-known and sometimes controversial writers in American history.  He authored novels, essays, screenplays and stage plays while also taking on a larger-than-life public role as an intellectual, debater and historian.

 

Vidal wrote 28 nonfiction books, 32 novels, 8 plays, and 16 screenplays and teleplays.  Many of his books were bestsellers, but especially gripping were his historical novels Burr, Lincoln, 1876 and Empire.  And he won the Nonfiction National Book Award for United States: Essays 1952–92.

 

“I never wanted to be a writer,” he said.  “I mean, for me, that was the last thing I wanted.”  Just before his death in 2012 he did an interview lamenting the state of “Reading in America.”

 

“You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?'” he said.  “The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?”