I read Gore's first memoir, Palimpsest, when I was just out of high school and what impacted me the most at that time, and for years afterward, was Gore's great love for Jimmy Trimble, the boy with whom he'd fooled around while in school and who was then killed in World War II. Back then, it seemed to me like a tragic tale of lost love. I could easily imagine what might have been if Jimmy had returned from war, how they would have ended up together.
I've certainly grown up a lot in the (we won't say how many!) years since then. Jimmy Trimble was a beautiful young man who died far too soon, and whatever they shared together certainly impacted Gore to some degree for the rest of his life. But the great love of Gore's life was Howard Auster, no matter how much Gore himself may have protested that his companion of 50 years was a friend with whom he shared his life or that the great secret to their lasting friendship was that they didn't sleep together.
Parini's insider view of their relationship, and especially of Gore's life after Howard's death, is eye opening, though it wasn't my first indication of Gore's true feelings. Vidal's description of Howard's passing, in his second memoir Point to Point Navigation, spoke volumes. Reading Parini's description of how Gore, at the very end of his life when he could barely speak, asked Jay to tell him stories about Howard and their times together, had tears streaming down my face.
Once young love and tragic loss seemed far more real and valid to me than a day to day life with someone with whom you didn't even share a bed. I've grown up, and I see now the difference between true love and youthful infatuation. Gore, always going against the grain, may have immortalized what he had with Jimmy both in fiction and memoir, but it was Howard who mattered to him.
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