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Gore Vidal at age 23 in 1948. | CARL VAN VECHTEN/ WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Gore Vidal at age twenty-three, in 1948. Photo by Carl Van Vechten/Wikimedia Commons.

“I can’t remember when I was not writing. I was taught to read by my grandmother. Central to her method was a tale of unnatural love called ‘The Duck and the Kangaroo.’ Then, because my grandfather, Senator Gore, was blind, I was required early on to read grown-up books to him, mostly constitutional law and, of course, the Congressional Record. The later continence of my style is a miracle, considering those years of piping the additional remarks of Mr. Borah of Idaho.” —Gore Vidal, the Art of Fiction No. 50