Senate (for California).Ī grandson of a U.S. House of Representatives (for New York), and later in 1982 to the U.S. He twice sought office-unsuccessfully-as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the U.S. Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and essays interrogated the social and cultural sexual norms he perceived as driving American life. Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( / v ɪ ˈ d ɑː l/ born Eugene Louis Vidal, Octo– July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner.
