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★ 1800 TRUE. BLUE. REPEAT. You've made an annual gift to Middlebury for the past three years H E Y , Y O U or more. Now what if we told you your gift could have even more impact? Set up a recurring gift today and both you and Middlebury A M A Z I N G will benefit. It’s support It's green; fewer It's one less It's easy to start— T R U E BLUE Middlebury can mailings mean thing for you to and easy to adjust count on for less paper and remember. as necessary. long-term ink. D O N O R S ! planning. Visit go.middlebury.edu/recurringgift to get started. COVER ESSAY! its resident, he said, “Ah, lo scrittore\ Gore Vidal. Americano!' He explained that the writer stopped by his shop almost every afternoon for a newspaper, then retired to the bar next door for a drink, where he would sit and read for an hour or so before taking the bus up the hill to Ravello. I knew the work of Gore Vidal moderately well. Having been an antiwar activist during the Vietnam era, I admired his political com mentaries in Esquire and the New York Review of Books. I never forgot his fiery debates with William F. Buckley during the 1968 presiden tial conventions, especially during the siege of Chicago. He had held his ground, driving Buckley mad with his logic and unflappable manner. I had read half a dozen of his novels, including Julian, Myra Breckinridge, Burr, and Lincoln. Needless to say, I wanted to meet him. Responding to a note I sent, Gore pounded on my door one afternoon not long after our ar rival, inviting my wife and me to dinner. I was terrified, as his reputation preceded him, and I thought he might be tricky But a friendship soon blossomed. I often met him for a drink or dinner, and a series of conversations began that lasted until his death in 2012. During these years, we spoke on the phone every week—for periods on a daily basis. And I would stay with him in Ravello or, later, in Los Angeles, meeting him often when he trav eled. He proved more than helpful to me as a younger writer. Reading drafts of my books, of By Jay Parini , D. E. Axinn Professor of English and fering frank critiques and encouragement. We Creative Writing discussed his work at length, too—he would frequently send a typescript of a galley for me A Note on the Door to read. In the early nineties. Gore asked me to take over the biography that Walter Clemons was My friendship with Gore Vidal began in the mid writing. My wife, perceptively, insisted that I decline, saying I could choose between the bi eighties, when I lived for a period on sabbatical with my ography or my friendship. So I decided then to write a book that could only be published after wife and young children in Atrani, a village on the coast his death, a frank yet fond look at a man I ad mired—even loved—and who had preoccupied of southern Italy We rented a small stone villa on a cliff me for such a long time. On one of my last visits with Gore, he won overlooking the sea, with a view to Salerno to the dered if I would follow through and write a book south and Capri just out of sight to the north. about him. I said that I would. “So write the We had a rooftop terrace, above which rose book,” he said “and notice the potholes. But, for a lemon grove and limestone cliffs. A massive God’s sake, keep your eyes on the main road.” □ villa—alabaster white, clinging to the rocks On the Cover: Jay Parmi and Gore Vidal (center); Susan ^ Swallow’s nest-loomed above us, and This essay is excerpted and adapted from Empire Sontagjacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Truman Capote, Norman wondered who lived in such opulence of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal. The feature story “A Mailer, Tennessee Williams, Gay Talese (clockwise) When I asked the tobacconist in town about Tale of Two Writers” begins on p. 46. COVER BY TIM BOWER AND ABOVE SNAPSHOTS IN HISTORY'S GLARE BY GORE VIDAL. USED BY PERMISSION OF ABRAMS BOOKS. Fall 201; 1 ■ SCENE ^ H i Training for the collegiate Nordic season begins long before the first snow falls. rr---^ W5> ^'~.A The roller-ski workout consists of a warm-up, a set of classic double-pole intervals, and a cool down. Simple 1^ iTf enough, but my muscles protest as we pick up the pace on the last interval, ff In the muggy afternoon air, sweat collects beneath my helmet, and as I push my metal y*W pole tips into the rough pavement, I wish the wheels .n..;if^r •' y-^y i/'••^ -■■ beneath my feet were not wheels at all but real skis, hitting the trails mid snowstorm. At the end of the workout, we roll back through campus. The changing fall landscapes—the turning leaves—remind me that cooler days are yet to come. And as the mornings bring ■ ■ ■ ■ PPPI y with them a hint of frost. I’m imagining winter days— tU M im al the driving motivation to put in these dry-land training hours. ««aAi „ ISSSffr ^'•;i-.- V.r J: By Luna Wasson ’17 . -v^-'xSSf Photograph by Brett Simison At;*, ■ Fall20/y 3 IS C E N E H H ., W*iL#v. *'' - A 2015 FoodWorks fellow S ',-;' ship took Emily Robinson ’18 to Kentucky, where an ' T ' > exploration of the local i food system revealed a broader story. Wendell Berry’s words about soil—“the great connec tor of lives, the source and destination of all”—resonated after I spent a summer in Kentucky working with the earth. The soil was mesmerizing, its appearance rela tively uniform until I submerged my hands into it and felt its depth and richness, ff I learned we should never take for granted the soil’s wealth and bounty because it connects us all to one another. Soil became the lens through which I experienced modern social challenges: poverty, food justice, and issues surrounding race and ethnicity. How can we be stewards of the Earth while also sharing its abundance equitably and using it as a source of connection instead of division? By Emily Robinson ’i8 Photograph by 'William DeShazer - ^ t-y : Fall 201$ 5 SCENE There’s an edecticism to Danielle Rougeau that fuels her work as an assistant curator of Special Collections—and outside the office, as well. ; Danielle Rougeau is not your typical archivist. Although i she is terrific at her job; spend just a few moments with her in Middlebury’s Special Collections and you’ll immediately see her love for history and discovery. But she’s not defined by her work. Far from it. ff I met Danielle my freshman year, when I thought Fd give the College’s Log Rolling Club a try. There she was in the pool, balanced atop an old telephone pole covered in in- j door-outdoor carpeting, running feverishly in place. I remember her laughter and her exclaiming, “You little devil!” ff Danielle also competes in scything contests, is a primitive biathaloner (black-powder rifle, wooden snowshoes), a butcher, a world traveler, and an adventure seeker. She even lets me store my canoe in her barn. My friends are always eager to hear my latest Danielle story, which inevitably ends with me saying, “You have to meet this woman.” And now you have. 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