Voice of the people

Gore Vidal: 'This country is finished. But, with a new republic like this, if you missed being here at the beginning, the next best thing is to be here at the end'. Interview by James Campbell


'The honest savage' ... Gore Vidal. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
 

Gore Vidal's collected essays, United States, a hefty volume incorporating the work of four decades in the form in which he is a modern master, won the US National Book Award for 1993. "It is the ugliest prize ever given to me," says the author, gesturing with a brandy snifter towards the room in which the unloved object stands. "It's two bronze cubes, my name is not on it, there's no identification of what it is. It's just like the country that gave it to me. Blank."

Conversation at Vidal's table has a tendency to flow towards the state of the union, no matter what the source. In America, he is admired - and more highly valued than he likes to admit - for an unorthodox liberalism that puts individual preference at the heart of everything, from sex to tax. For 60 years, through novels, plays and miscellaneous non-fiction, Vidal has preached the message that government is not only pervasive but corrupt; that while there are may be two political brands, Democrat and Republican, there is only one party: business.

At the start of the Democratic presidential nomination, Vidal had favoured Hillary Clinton (a photo in his 1995 memoir, Palimpsest, shows Mrs. Clinton visiting him at home in Italy), but recently he switched to "the other side". Not John McCain, of course. "McCain is the village idiot. He is very, very stupid, even by American standards." Barack Obama has begun to impress him - "but only to a point. He doesn't have much to say. I'd rather see a woman as president, if we're going to go in for minorities, but Hillary lost her nerve."

He believes that Obama will be the next US president. "He'll be shot, though, that's his problem. If Jack [Kennedy] knew he was going to be shot, a black boy must know it too." Invited to suggest a motive for Obama's persistence, Vidal offers "Curiosity. Even - dare I use a word never used in American political life any more? - honour. Mine was the last generation to have believed in such a concept." The brandy glass completes its voyage to the mouth, permitting a whispered exclamation of disgust. "I cannot believe the trashiness of this country."

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