The City and the Pillar - Gore Vidal

 The City and the Pillar is both a roman a clef and perhaps the first American homosexual novel, certainly the first one to break through from underground genre to mainstream.  Considering it came out in 1948, when the author was only 22, I find Vidal surprisingly frank and yet mature enough to know that his readers know perfectly well what he is talking about.

It is not in any sense a novel for gay readers only.  Jim Willard is another ordinary middle class youth in Virginia, living with his parents and siblings, who happens to be good at tennis and not much else.  His best friend is Bob Ford (great choice of name, by the way), who dreams of running off to sea.  Immediately before Bob makes his escape, the boys spend a night out in the woods where one thing leads to another.  Bob becomes Jim's epitome of manhood and love - but Bob is away at sea.  Ultimately Jim follows, without much direction but always in search of Bob.  He joins the merchant marine too but after an embarrassing foursome in Alaska he jumps ship and ends up teaching tennis in Hollywood and living with the clandestinely gay movie star Ronald Shaw.  Then he travels with the failed novelist and scriptwriter Paul Sullivan, who introduces Jim to a older woman, Maria Verlaine, the sort of woman he can love but not physically, which is what she wants and needs from him.

Then comes the war.  Jim enlists but never makes it overseas.  He falls ill and is discharged with rheumatoid arthritis, the result of an infection that nearly killed him.  He naturally re-evaluates his life.  He gets in touch with all the people he has let down and spends the rest of the book catching up and resolving issues as far as he can.  Finally he makes it home to Virginia, and faces up to the last remaining issue,,,

I've previously read only Vidal's vast historical series Narrative of Empire, written at the other end of his distinguished career.  The City and the Pillar is slight by comparison, yet it is deeply felt and extraordinarily vivid.  It captures the fragmentation of lives torn between public and private.  It celebrates the lonely ones who search for their dream, be it Shaw's desire to be a proper stage actor, Sullivan's ache for success as well as reputation, or Maria and Jim's simple search for the one who will love them back.  It is enlivened by comic moments - the gay set clinging to one another because nobody else wants them, camping it up and gossiping cattily.

It's a tremendous achievement by a great writer.