SOURCE: “Tiresias' Truths,” in Times Literary Supplement, December 6, 1991, p. 7.

In the following review of A View from the Diner’s Club, Lefkowitz commends Vidal's “pronouncements on politics and life,” though finds his literary criticism less interesting.

The curious title of this book [A View from the Diner's Club] is emblematic, but not of its contents. It expresses Vidal’s attitude toward the elite literary world where one would naturally have placed him, had he not warned us by the title that he wanted none of it (or us). Vidal explains that in 1976 he could not accept the honour of election to the (American) National Institute of Arts and Letters because he was already a member of the Diners Club. What more elegant way to tell the Writers Club how much he values their opinion, and, for that matter, the opinion of anyone who likes what they write? And...