Thanks to Colin Robinson for coming up with the idea for this book, along with the title. Jay Parini, Gore Vidal’s literary executor, provided indispensable help. Laura Bolt did a superb job assisting with the editing.
At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, special thanks to Maret Orliss for inviting me to interview Gore onstage at Royce Hall. And thanks to Ann Binney for helping.
At the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, thanks to Steve Ross and Louise Steinman for inviting me to interview Gore. Thanks to Claud Zachary at the USC library special collections department for help with the audio of that event, and to Allison Engel for digging up the archives of the event.
At KPFK 90.7FM in Los Angeles, thanks to former general manager Mark Shubb and to Marc Cooper for launching the program which provided the pretext for my interviewing Gore, and thanks to Marc Torres of the Pacifica Radio Archives for technical assistance.
At the Radical History Review, thanks to issue editors Mike Wallace, Greg Nobles and Jon Schneer, and to managing editor Amy Ward. Special thanks to Bill Billingsley for research assistance on that piece.
Thanks to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, for giving me the assignment of writing about Gore for TheNation.com after his death, for editing that piece, and for permission to reprint it here. Thanks also to Victor Navasky for his help writing that piece.
Finally, thanks to Judy Fiskin for coming on that 1987 trip to Ravello—it was unforgettable—and for coming to all the other events as well. Her enthusiasm and support for this project were indispensable.