Gore Vidal the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86.

Vidal was a literary juggernaut who wrote 25 novels, including historical works such as “Lincoln” and “Burr” and satires such as “Myra Breckinridge” and “Duluth.” He was also a prolific essayist whose pieces on politics, sexuality, religion and literature -- once described as “elegantly sustained demolition derbies” -- both delighted and inflamed and in 1993 earned him a National Book Award for his massive “United States Essays, 1952-1992

He also wrote Broadway hits, screenplays, television dramas and a trio of mysteries under a pseudonym that remain in print after 50 years.

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-writer-gore-vidal-86-has-died-20120731,0,3728239.story

Impressive man. I just read about this on The Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/gore-vidal-dead-author-playwright-intellectual-obituary_n_1726666.html?1343794618&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Very few people have changed the way I think-Gore Vidal was one.

The world is a poorer place today.

We'll not see the likes of him again. Wish someone would put together collected writings and interviews of him.