HOMAGE TO DANIEL SHAYS: Collected Essays by GORE VIDAL 449 pages. Random House. $8.95.
Taps for John Horne Burns (The Gallery), burned out and dead at 36. A volley for Tom Heggen (Mister Roberts), a suicide at 30. Honorable discharges for Irwin Shaw, James Jones, John Hersey and James Michener. Of that generation of promising World War II novelists, only two have combined the talent, versatility, nerve, style and combative instincts to make it in the great big American way that joins the oakleaf cluster of durable celebrity to money. Obviously one is Norman...
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