jaredreadsforpainandpleasure 's review for:

The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal

4.0

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This was the first Gore Vidal novel I’ve read and I’ll probably read more. Vidal, kind of in the vein of Tennessee Williams and Capote, was a queer man writing post WWII and this novel was in keeping with the similar works of its time. The City and the Pillar is a melancholy coming of age gay work, depicting what the seldom talked of gay world was like in the mid 20th century. Life as a gay man wasn’t easy and the idea of finding ones own queer family was central to existing in the gay world. I thought the portrayal of Jim as the struggling homosexual was depressing but apt, though I struggled to sympathize with some of his decisions. Overall a very good novel, though maybe not the best of its kind