A post with the heading “In Memoriam” has been posted at his Web page, comprised of two photos of Vidal, and his Wikipedia entry has been updated to reflect today as the date of his death. There is no story yet on any wire service, however.
UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times confirms, but adds very little:
Gore Vidal, the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86.
Vidal died Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills of complications of pneumonia, said nephew Burr Steers.
UPDATE: The Boston Herald provides an able and balanced summary of Vidal’s career, here:
Along with such contemporaries as Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, Vidal was among the last generation of literary writers who were also genuine celebrities — fixtures on talk shows and in gossip columns, personalities of such size and appeal that even those who hadn’t read their books knew who they were.
His works included hundreds of essays; the best-selling novels “Lincoln” and “Myra Breckenridge”; the groundbreaking “The City and the Pillar,” among the first novels about openly gay characters; and the Tony-nominated play “The Best Man,” revived on Broadway in 2012.
