Two Sisters

Written by Gore Vidal

Narrated by Christopher Lane

Two Sisters is Gore Vidal’s fictional memoir of a love affair with a beautiful set of twins in post-war Paris—a story skilfully interwoven with notebooks, diaries and the vivid fragment of a screenplay set in ancient Greece. In seductive settings from a brothel in a Parisian backstreet to the rooftops of seventies Rome, Vidal assembles his characters, real and imagined: Cocteau and Tennessee Williams, Gide and Mailer rub shoulders with creations as unforgettable as the ageing femme fatale Marietta Donegal and Hollywood hustler and flagellant Murray Morris. All are bound together in a mesmerising fiction that builds to an extraordinary conclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781799751793

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was born at the United States Military Academy at West Point. His first novel, Williwaw, written when he was 19 years old and serving in the army, appeared in the spring of 1946. He wrote 23 novels, five plays, many screenplays, short stories, well over 200 essays, and a memoir.

Reviews for Two Sisters

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mr. Vidal allows himself a serious measure of venom as he weaves a tale of reading a film script dealing with an obscure incident in post Alexander Anatolia. While he’s doing that he recalls a period when he was having an affair with a woman while really lusting after her brother. The prose isn’t very sprightly, and the whole production is less than sterling Vidal. Only read this one for completeness of bibliography. Finished, January 15, 1971.

[wirkman_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of Gore Vidal's odder books. It is not one thing, it is several things at once: a memoir (it is said), a novel, a screenplay. Quite pomo, eh? And yet it is not a product of the unvirsity, of the U Novel, as Vidal called it; "American Plastic." It is a clever juxtaposition of forms and intents, and yet completely readable.It has a typically brilliant Vidal opening: "Despite my protests, Marietta revealed her breasts." Though he seems to be writing about sex memoirist Anais Nin, he mentions her on the first page (cover your bets!) as a flawless writer of "handsome prose." On page 4 is the money quote, for me . . . he is talking books with the breast-bearing lady, and then reflects:"[I]n the back of my mind, the perfect analogy to Nabokov had suddenly surfaced. James Branch Cabell. I began to compose a blurb: "Not since Cabell's 'Jurgen' has there been a novel so certain to delight the truly refined reader as Nabokov's 'Ada.'"A droll book, quite good. Not like other fiction, unless of it can be said that NOT SINCE NABOKOV'S 'ADA' HAS THERE BEEN A NOVEL SO CERTAIN TO DELIGHT THE TRULY REFINED READER.