"Vidal could not not work hard ("I find that when I do not write, I do not think"). He agreed to do a teleplay for NBC about Abraham Lincoln, which soon grew into the novel that would be his magnum opus and most successful book. Work was fueled by coffee ("This stuff has killed more writers than liquor") and a desire to stave off the melancholy of middle age. So he kept busy ("The mind that doesn't nourish itself devours itself"). By"