BREAKING: Gore Vidal dead at 86

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41. RIP. Gore Vidal, iconoclastic writer, has died at 86

Gore Vidal, iconoclastic writer, has died at 86
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-writer-gore-vidal-86-has-died-20120731,0,3728239.story

Vidal died Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills of complications of pneumonia, said nephew Burr Steers.

Vidal was a literary juggernaut who wrote 25 novels, including historical works such as “Lincoln” and “Burr” and satires such as “Myra Breckinridge” and “Duluth.” He was also a prolific essayist whose pieces on politics, sexuality, religion and literature -- once described as “elegantly sustained demolition derbies” -- both delighted and inflamed and in 1993 earned him a National Book Award for his massive “United States Essays, 1952-1992.”