Introduction. Rock Creek ramble -- A silver-plated mug -- Capitol steps -- A wider world -- Truman and Gore at the Plaza -- Not a lovely war -- Two roads diverging -- Storm at sea -- Hearts of darkness -- Edgewater recalled -- Portrait of the artist as Balletomane -- Pillars of salt -- Stateside -- More dolce vita -- Finding Dutchess County -- Loving Howard -- Beverly Hills blues -- Detecting life -- The Spanish main -- Media as messages -- Silvery screens -- More visits to small planets -- Outlaws -- Ben-Hur -- A place at the round table -- At the Water's edge - Hyannis -- "You'll get more with Gore" -- Slouching towards Camelot -- Essaying the world -- Roman spring -- Julian rising -- Moravia and Gore on the Isola Tiberna -- Romanitas -- Capitol steps revisited -- The holy family -- Myra -- Busy weekends -- The Vidal-Buckley debates -- Furious visions -- Miss Sontag writes a novel -- A bad year -- Writing Richard Nixon -- Italian hours -- Patriotic Gore -- The swirl -- Myron unmanned -- The man who wouldn't fall to earth -- Half a century -- 1876 and all that -- Memories, dreams, self-reflections -- Apocalypse not quite yet -- Hollywood redux -- Grace and hope -- Gore and Isaiah Berlin in Oxford -- Acting president -- Running in place -- Duluth : love it or loathe it -- Honorary citizen -- Land of Lincoln -- Ah, Venice! -- The lesson of the master -- "It's a trade" -- "One disaster after another" -- Fear of flying -- Imperium -- Sailing the coast -- Adding wings to the mansion -- Lenny and gore -- "Our country's biographer" -- "The other side of the camera" -- Attacking the sky-God -- Thinking about sex -- Retreats, advances -- In the widening gyre -- At the Harvard Faculty Club -- Rethinking Washington -- Dreams of wholeness -- Elder statesman -- Reviewing the life -- The golden age -- Still the best man -- Songs in the Hollywood Hills -- The pamphleteer -- Finding founding fathers -- A death before bedtime -- Marching to the sea -- The last memoir -- Mopping-up operations -- Snapshots of the end -- Conclusion -- Postscript.