Sympathy for the Devil: Four Decades of Friendship With Gore Vidal - Hardcover

Praise for Michael Mewshaw

"Perhaps the best American writer you never heard of." --"San Francisco Chronicle"

Praise for Michael Mewshaw
"Perhaps the best American writer you never heard of." --"San Francisco Chronicle"

Praise for "Sympathy for the Devil
""Michael Mewshaw's "Sympathy for the Devil," his reminiscence of Gore Vidal, proves easy to praise--swift, canny, sensitive, and unafraid." --John Domini, "Bookforum
""[Mewshaw's] Vidal is brilliantly alive, raunchy, as easily offended as he is quick to give offense--and then, finally, desperately self-hating, vituperative, and alone." --Julia M. Klein, "The Boston Globe
"
Praise for Michael Mewshaw
"Perhaps the best American writer you never heard of." --"San Francisco Chronicle"

"Michael Mewshaw's "Sympathy for the Devil," his reminiscence of Gore Vidal, proves easy to praise--swift, canny, sensitive, and unafraid." --John Domini, "Bookforum
""[Mewshaw's] Vidal is brilliantly alive, raunchy, as easily offended as he is quick to give offense--and then, finally, desperately self-hating, vituperative, and alone." --Julia M. Klein, "The Boston Globe
"

Michael Mewshaw knew Vidal as a friend for nearly forty years, and he pays his respects to him in this affectionate, sympathetic biography. ["Sympathy for the Devil" is] a thoroughly entertaining, breezy and up-close memoir about a public man of 'wealth and taste' who prided himself on his pride.--Tom Lavoie "Shelf Awareness "

Fascinating . . . "Sympathy for the Devil" might be the perfect Vidal biography because it reveals a figure that is more human - more flawed, more interesting, more real - than the caricature that the public came to accept as the bona fide Gore.--Doug Childers "Richmond Times "

Exceptionally entertaining.--Michael Dirda "The Washington Post "

Mewshaw develops a picture of his friend as quixotic, a devoted life-mate to his companion Howard Austin, an avuncular if not fatherly figure and often a raging provocateur at dinner parties, banquets and conferences-except when he's not. Mewshaw records a lot of sharp, witty one-liners which, as he reveals, Vidal practiced and polished before he delivered them. And the vast amounts of alcohol the writer imbibed on a daily basis reveal him to be a contradictory character . . . A study of friendship with a famous man, easy to admire and difficult to love.--Alan Cheuse "NPR, All Things Considered "

In "Sympathy for the Devil," Michael Mewshaw removes the mask to reveal a man much more complexand tortured than most fans of Vidal's writings might ever have dared imagine . . . The decline andfall of Gore Vidal is a painful but perversely exciting read. Behind the patrician veneer was clearly a troubled man.--Robert Collison "The Toronto Star "

A companionable account that finally succeeds in living up to its title. The reader, too, will feel sympathy for the old devil . . . there is little doubt that Mewshaw's affection for Vidal is genuine.--James Campbell "The Times Literary Supplement "