Gore Vidal’s Final Feud

In the early aughts, thanks to my then position as editor at large of this publication, I found myself in the middle of the last great feud in Gore Vidal’s long, august line of literary battles. Erudite and waspish, and routinely referred to in his lifetime as “America’s greatest man of letters,” Vidal, who would have turned 100 on October 3, 2025, had a breadth of achievement as a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, occasional politician, and TV talk show personality, one that has no equivalent—and likely never will—in American culture. He was also known for his rollicking public spats with fellow midcentury literary icons. He’d crossed swords, most famously, with William F. Buckley Jr. , Norman Mailer , and Truman Capote , and had either sued, been sued by, or threatene