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The City and the Pillar

A Novel

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The City and the Pillar

By: Gore Vidal
Narrated by: Will Damron
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About this listen

A literary cause célèbre when first published more than fifty years ago, Gore Vidal’s now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience.

Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. Along the way he struggles with what he feels is his unique bond with Bob and with his persistent attraction to other men. Upon finally encountering Bob years later, the force of his hopes for a life together leads to a devastating climax. The first novel of its kind to appear on the American literary landscape, The City and the Pillar remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of sexual relationships between men.

©1948, 1965 E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Introduction © 1995 by Literary Creation Enterprises, Inc. Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction
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The monologue about the catholic churxh must be one of the strangest and funniest I have read. gore takes truwth qnd twists it. jim desteoyed his happiness. he coule not wait. jim's mother was a masterpiece. poor bob. he was his brothee, his tein. dud he rape himself? sex and violence. he did not deaerve thar. please dry your eyes mate.

Oh my God. Such brilliance . What tragedy.

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