Photo: David Shankbone (2009) CC BY 3.0
Sample of authors
Vidal, Gore
The American novelist and essayist Gore Vidal was born at West Point, New York. He was originally christened Eugene Vidal, but in his teens he changed his first name to his maternal grandfather’s surname. Gore Vidal was the only child of the pilot Eugene Luther Vidal and his wife, Nina S. Gore, an actress. He was not close to either. His parents were divorced when Vidal was ten, and although he m...
Literary figures
William Tobin
Gender: Male
A police detective in New York with a university education – he graduated from Princetown in 1918 – and the main character in three novels by Dorothy B. Hughes. William ‘Toby’ Tobin is small of stature, with a thin face. Yet he acts with considerable poise, and he speaks so sharply that the words ‘fall like hailstones’. Little is known about his private life, but he smokes heavily and does not lik...