Gore Vidal is rapidly becoming his own worst enemy, no small feat for a veteran of so many literary feuds and friendships that have gone sour. For years, Vidal has been railing against such abominations as the Non-Fiction Novel, the New Novel, and the University Novel. These literary forms, Vidal contends, may have some worth, but not as fiction. His own work, with one or two exceptions, has generally been in the traditional form exemplified by his favorite American novelist, Henry James. Since the publication of Burr, Vidal has enjoyed a reputation as one of the best novelists in the United States.

Lately, however, Vidal has begun to work against himself and his own best ideas by letting his novels become essays with stories wrapped around them. In the process, he is turning into the leading proponent of what might be called the Polemic Novel. In Myra Breckinridge...