Though well represented in print, most recently with Jay Parini's edit of The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal, the oracular Vidal seems glaringly overlooked by the buzzing, blooming noise/newsmakers bleating for our attention. Which makes his 2009 conversation with Parini (Vidal's designated literary executor) all the more valuable--especially as it was produced by the inestimable Key West Literary Seminars. Gore Vidal, you should know, has written seven plays, countless essays, and more than 25 novels, of which the Empire series (Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, and The Golden Age) lucidly parallel America's history. To note, his 1993 collection United States: Essays 1952-1992 won that year's National Book Award.