The protagonist of a novel by this author refers to Parker Tyler as "our age's central thinker" while consulting Tyler's book Magic and Myth of the Movies. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this American author and frequent political commentator, who depicted the title character's transition in Myra Breckinridge and wrote the Narratives of Empire series.
ANSWER: Gore Vidal [Eugene Luther Gore Vidal; or Eugene Louis Vidal]
[10h] In this 1948 novel by Gore Vidal, Jim Willard pursues Bob Ford while traveling with Maria Verlaine and Paul Sullivan. This novel was one of the first in America to openly discuss homosexuality.
ANSWER: The City and the Pillar
[10e] In The City and the Pillar, Jim works as a tennis instructor and has an affair with actor Ronald Shaw while living in this city. Nathanael West satirized this city's prolific film industry in The Day of the Locust.
ANSWER: Los Angeles [or Hollywood]
<Andrew McCowan , Literature - American long fiction>