Author | Gore Vidal |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Political fiction |
Publisher | E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York City |
Publication date | 1950 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 296 |
ISBN | 0233989137 |
Preceded by | A Search for the King |
Followed by | The Judgement of Paris |
Dark Green, Bright Red is a novel by Gore Vidal, concerning a revolution headed by a former military dictator in an unnamed Central American republic. The book was first published in 1950 in the United States by E. P. Dutton. [1] [2] It drew upon Vidal's experiences living in Guatemala during the Guatemalan Revolution. [3]
Vidal re-wrote a significantly shortened version of Dark Green, Bright Red in 1968. However, when the book was published in a new United Kingdom edition in 1995 by Andre Deutsch, the longer, original text was used. [3]
With the backing of a U.S. fruit company, a court-martialled American army officer and a French advisor, General Alvarez, a deposed Central American dictator mounts an attempted coup d'etat to regain power. The first part of the book is set mainly in jungle, yet most of the military action takes place elsewhere. It was the first of Vidal's books to explore the idea that the United States was an imperialist country. [3]
The novel received mixed to negative reviews. A review in The New York Times called it "a sad waste of real narrative gifts and wit", [4] while Kirkus Reviews considered it "[w]ell-written, with authentic atmosphere, ... but not up to the mark of [Vidal's] earlier work." [5] Saturday Review deemed it "an interesting failure." [6]
Political fiction employs narrative to comment on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction, such as political novels, often "directly criticize an existing society or present an alternative, even fantastic, reality". The political novel overlaps with the social novel, proletarian novel, and social science fiction.
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Eugene Luther Gore Vidal was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and essays interrogated the social and cultural sexual norms he perceived as driving American life. Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. He twice sought office—unsuccessfully—as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the U.S. House of Representatives, and later in 1982 to the U.S. Senate.
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Count Gore de Vol is a television horror host who originally appeared on Washington, D.C.'s WDCA from 1973 to 1987. Originally named M.T. Graves and played by announcer Dick Dyszel, the character first appeared on the WDCA version of the Bozo the Clown program. When the character got a positive reaction, he was given his own program, called Creature Feature. The choice of Gore de Vol as the character's name was either a pun involving the name of acerbic author Gore Vidal or the name of a prominent Washington, D.C. funeral home, "de Vol". Gore de Vol became the Washington/Baltimore area's longest-running horror host, broadcast every Saturday night on WDCA from March 1973 to May 1987. He returned to the D.C. airwaves for a one-time special, Countdown with the Count, on New Year's Eve 1999.
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