Literary feuds, and the feuders who loved them

Joseph Epstein says it was television what ruined the post-war American novelist:

[T]his generation of writers had men of belligerence and maliciousness who had the first access to television, and hence to celebrity. Mailer’s bumptiousness, with a slight threat of violence behind it, often made for good television; Capote, frequently appearing half in the tank on late-night television talk shows, was expert at attracting attention through scandalous gossip; and Vidal was sheer poison, with outdated snobbery added, and, given the chance, would have devised a put-down for a blind orphan. Immodest and ungenerous, none of these writers required failure at writing the Great American Novel to stoke his malice.''

Of course, being Epstein, he has to end his excellent review of a book on feuds between writers with a few of his own, carefully curated grudges. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/you-stink-he-explained/