Book Description
A landmark collection that brings together Truman Capote’s life’s work in the form he called his “great love,” The Complete Stories confirms Capote’s status as a master of the the short story. This first-ever compendium features a never-before-published 1950 story, “The Bargain,” as well as an introduction by Reynolds Price. Ranging from the gothic South to the chic East Coast, from rural children to aging urban sophisticates, all the unforgettable places and people of Capote’s oeuvre are here, in stories as elegant as they are heartfelt, as haunting as they are compassionate. Reading them reminds us of the miraculous gifts of a beloved American original. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

extraordinary small jewels
Truman Capote was a brilliant, eccentric novelist and author of a shocking at the time of its publication, documentary fiction book "In Cold Blood". And although he is famous for these works, his short stories are equally captivating and original. They are small masterpieces, weird and magnetizing.

The protagonists are usually strange children (in his other works, Capote did not pay much attention to children), fascinating and different than adults, with their own world, dreams and agendas, or alienated, nerdish, unhappy adults, losers, who also have much of a child in them. Some of the protagonists are said to be modeled on the real people the author met during the course of his life, but some can be only attributed to his imagination...

The world in the stories is only semi-realistic, like a dream, everything is wrapped in a fog of uncertainty. My favorite stories are " Children On Their Birthdays" (the longest of the stories, I think, and very well structured) where the life of a certain Miss Bobbitt, a girl of extraordinary discipline and set life goals, is abruptly ended by the afternoon bus; "Miriam" (which won The O'Henry Prize), where an elderly lady enters into a nightmare, after meeting at the cinemaan angelic-looking little girl-demon, not to be able to get rid of her again (actually cost me some sleepless nights...); "Master Misery" about a mysterious New York City man, who buys people's dreams and a girl who gets addicted to dream-selling; and "A Tree of Night", about a dreary encounter on the train. The stories are spooky, but if analyzed, the events recalled may not have anything strange in them to the outside observer; yet the interpretation and way in which they are told suggest otherwise.

These short stories show the other side of Capote's fiction and are a great round-up for anyone who wants to know his works thoroughly.

Not His Best, But. . .
These stories are not the best examples of Truman Capote's writing, but they are a good resource for tracking his development as a writer, leading up to the mastery of his "In Cold Blood" which, in my opinion, is one of the best books published in the latter part of the 20th century.

It's Great to Remember
I forgot how wonderful Capote writes.His short stories make me laugh, cry, and think.

It was the best weekend spent reading that I have had in years.

Capote the Limited
Capote is bad when he writes about poor people. He's alright when he writes about rich people. He's extraordinary when he writes about himself. His "complete short stories" attempt all three. However good his style is, sentence for sentence, avoid the stories that suck. Because they suck. Read Capote when he's himself, and avoid him when he's masquerading.

so easy to read
mr. capote are simply beautiful.What I really like is that they are actually short stories, most be about 10 pages long. He takes you into the characters world and shares their life with you.One couldn't ask for better writings on the people of New York City. A Must read for all!!! ... Read more

Book Description
Perhaps no twentieth century writer was so observant and elegant a chronicler of his times as Truman Capote. Whether he was profiling the rich and famous or creating indelible word-pictures of events and places near and far, Capote’s eye for detail and dazzling style made his reportage and commentary undeniable triumphs of the form.

Portraits and Observations is the first volume devoted solely to all the essays ever published by this most beloved of writers. From his travel sketches of Brooklyn, New Orleans, and Hollywood, written when he was twenty-two, to meditations about fame, fortune, and the writer’s art at the peak of his career, to the brief works penned during the isolated denouement of his life, these essays provide an essential window into mid-twentieth-century America as offered by one of its canniest observers. Included are such celebrated masterpieces of narrative nonfiction as “The Muses Are Heard” and the short nonfiction novel “Handcarved Coffins,” as well as many long-out-of-print essays, including portraits of Isak Dinesen, Mae West, Marcel Duchamp, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe.

Among the highlights are “Ghosts in Sunlight: The Filming of In Cold Blood, “Preface to Music for Chameleons, in which Capote candidly recounts the highs and lows of his long career, and a playful self-portrait in the form of an imaginary self-interview. The book concludes with the author’s last written words, composed the day before his death in 1984, the recently discovered
“Remembering Willa Cather,” Capote’s touching recollection of his encounter with the author when he was a young man at the dawn of his career.

Portraits and Observations puts on display the full spectrum of Truman Capote’s brilliance. Certainly, Capote was, as Somerset Maugham famously called him, “a stylist of the first quality.” But as the pieces gathered here remind us, he was also an artist of remarkable substance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Enjoyed it but it did not quite meet my expectations
I was very excited to buy this book and begin reading it during the holidays.I skipped around in it rather than reading from start to finish.One of the best items in it isn't actually an essay at all - its a murder mystery story that is captivating, but is fictional ("Handcarved Coffins.") (Midway through reading it I searched via Google for info on the murders and quickly found it was not an actual non-fiction account.)I enjoyed the essay about the history of the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood where Capote lived for several years.An essay about a theatre group going to the USSR to perform Porgy and Bess was interesting and humorous.

The essay on Marlon Brando, "The Duke in His Doman" seemed like a waste of pages.The gist of it is that when Capote met with Brando in Japan during the filming of Sayonara, Brando was self-absorbed and arrogantly believed himself to be a great philospher.I think that essay could have been left out.

There are a number of very short essays that are probably better described as "vignettes."I found these less satisfying - Capote seems better at capturing a place or person with more words, with the exception of the Brando essay.

This book might have been better if it had been a combination of essays and letters and some of the weaker essays had been left out, or supplemented by relevant letters.

Capote one of Best Writers Ever & This collection of essays prove it!
Capote was one of the best writers ever even when his lifestyle was in the pits.This collection of essays prove it. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Nobody can match George Plimpton as an adroit weaver of interviews into a tight narrative fabric. Plimpton can make even a negligible life into a magic-carpet ride, as in his editing of Jean Stein's perennial bestseller, Edie, about Andy Warhol's victim-starlet Edie Sedgwick.

In Truman Capote, Plimpton has an infinitely more important subject, who worked his way down from the top into the shallow pit of druggy celebrity. His book doesn't knock the definitive biography Capote off the shelf, but it's much more fun to read. Plimpton interviewed more than a hundred people--from Capote's childhood to his peak period, 1966, when his Black and White Ball defined high society and In Cold Blood launched the true crime genre, all the way down to his last, sad days as a bitchy caricature of himself. Joanna Carson complains that Plimpton's book is "gossip," which it gloriously is. But it's also brimming with important literary history, and it helps in the Herculean task of sorting out the truth from Capote's multitudinous, entertaining lies; for instance, In Cold Blood turns out to be not strictly factual. James Dickey, whose similar self-destruction is chronicled in Summer of Deliverance, delivers here a good definition of Capote's true gift to literature: "The scene stirring with rightness and strangeness, the compressed phrase, the exact yet imaginative word, the devastating metaphorical aptness, a feeling of concentrated excess which at the same time gives the effect of being crystalline." --Tim Appelo Book Description
He was the most social of writers, and at the height of his career, he was the very nexus of the glamorous worlds of the arts, politics and society, a position best exemplified by his still legendary Black and White Ball. Truman truly knew everyone, and now the people who knew him best tell his remarkable story to bestselling author and literary lion, George Plimpton.

Using the oral-biography style that made his Edie (edited with Jean Stein) a bestseller, George Plimpton has blended the voices of Capote's friends, lovers, and colleagues into a captivating and narrative. Here we see the entire span of Capote's life, from his Southern childhood, to his early days in New York; his first literary success with the publication of Other Voices, Other Rooms; his highly active love life; the groundbreaking excitement of In Cold Blood, the first "nonfiction novel"; his years as a jet-setter; and his final days of flagging inspiration, alcoholism, and isolation. All his famous friends and enemies are here: C.Z. Guest, Katharine Graham, Lauren Bacall, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, John Huston, William F. Buckley, Jr., and dozens of others.

Full of wonderful stories, startlingly intimate and altogether fascinating, this is the most entertaining account of Truman Capote's life yet, as only the incomparable George Plimpton could have done it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Truman Capote
Anyone who has read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote knows that it was his best writing. He created a new genre of reporting and fiction combined by immersing himself in the subject of his book. He spent months living in Kansas where the Clutter family was murdered and many hours with the two young men who did the killing. After the blockbuster book came out, Capote was catapaulted into celebrity and high society. This book is so interesting because it follows Capote's life from childhood through his rise and fall from grace. His friends and acquaintances tell the story as if you were sitting there listening to them discuss Capote, the good and the bad. Truman was an elfin sprite, full of stories, not all true but extremely entertaining. But at the end of his life he was using drugs and alcohol to deaden the frustration of being unable to top his masterpiece book and finding nothing better to write about, turned on his high society friends, writing a tell all book about them using thinly disguised characters. Because of this, the people who made him, dropped him out of their lives completely, leaving him bewildered. He had wrongly assumed that they would understand and forgive him. After that he simply drifted and declined physically, drinking until his body gave out. He died in the arms of his best friend Joanne Carson, exwife of Johnny Carson. He knew he was going and begged her not to call for help, as he was worn out and finished. I think I would like to read In Cold Blood again, this time with a different understanding of Truman Capote.

A fictional biography of Capote
As a fan of Plimpton's witty style, I picked up the Capote biography, only to realize that Plimpton didn't write it. Instead, he interviewed dozens of people and let them tell Capote's life story. At first, I was mildly disappointed but soon understood the irony: Capote was infamous for his gossipping, and now these acquaintances are gossipping about him. In the same way that Capote created a "nonfiction novel" with In Cold Blood, Plimpton compiled a "subjective biography" that focuses on Capote's public persona more than his private life. (Perhaps because much of his private life was public.) The interviews are colored by the subjects' relationships with Capote, and many of them have an agenda in talking about him, so I would not recommend the book to someone who wants to read a factual chronicle. However, it is entertaining and gives a portrait of the New York high society--in which authors had a place, unlike today (I think)--probably better than a standard biography could provide.

Inimitable Plimpton
Full of salacious detail and struck through with the the vagaries of human nature, this oral history highlights, in an immensely readable way, the arc of ambition that propels the talented Tuman Capote to reach beyond the world into which he was born. The journey takes us on a wonderful romp through post WWII New York society and careens toward a place where our subject falls to his own singular sirens. It was a great Nantucket beach read.

A Capote Reader
I really liked this book. I am a Truman Capote fan, and the book was wonderful. A must read for Capote fans especially!

TRUMAN
Honestly, Capote would have loved this book, he loved the subject above all others.Ths late Plimpton does a fine job getting many of Capote's friends and admirors, as well as detractors, to give an insightful look at this singular man.Capote was complex and manipulative, but people were drawn to him, he was the ultimate self promoter.I really think even those who hated him, missed him when he died.He could be heartless and cruel, but he had a certain quality, I guess it's called star power, that made him a very powerful friend to have, he rode the success of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffanys to the apex of society.He was painfully insecure and it's sad that he felt people were only his friend because of his ability to write great books, it's tragic that late in life he felt the need to make up the fact that he was writing this masterpiece, I think he was terrified of writing the book that would follow In Cold Blood, that I believe is what lead him to write the ill advised Unaswered Prayers. You will really want to avert your eyes when the vail is pulled away on Capote. ... Read more

Amazon.com
A Christmas Memory is the classic memoir of Truman Capote's childhood in rural Alabama. Until he was ten years old, Capote lived with distant relatives. This book is an autobiographical story of those years and his frank and fond memories of one of his cousins, Miss Sook Faulk. The text is illustrated with full color illustrations that add greatly to the story without distracting from Capote's poignant prose.Book Description
First published in 1956, this much sought-after autobiographical recollection of Truman Capote's rural Alabama boyhood has become a modern-day classic. We are proud to be reprinting this warm and delicately illustrated edition of A Christmas Memory--"a tiny gem of a holiday story" (School Library Journal, starred review). Seven-year-old Buddy inaugurates the Christmas season by crying out to his cousin, Miss Sook Falk: "It's fruitcake weather!" Thus begins an unforgettable portrait of an odd but enduring friendship between two innocent souls--one young and one old--and the memories they share of beloved holiday rituals.   ... Read more

Customer Reviews (74)

Enchanting
This was my first taste of Truman Capote away from Breakfast at Tiffany's, and I have to admit that I was blown away by these stories. Rarely does a story pull at my heart strings anymore, but these stories practically left me in tears. Incredibly moving.

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
We shared this book at our Christmas book club and were touched by Capote's writing.

Truman Capote: A Christmas Memory
Beautifully bound and covered. Wonderfully written; an understatement. Got it as a present for my son's English teacher. Perfect.

Sweet and Sad and Superb!
There is a sadness that colors all of Capote's writing.And there's also a sweetness and innocence.Capote set high standards for himself and it shows in his virtually flawless writing."A Christmas Memory" is a classic holiday story written in the distinctive Capote style.And like all of his writing it is sweet and sad and superb!

Also recommended: Christmas Gifts, Christmas Voices--an excellent Capote-like tale of enduring and prevailing.

Haruki Murakami's favorite book
I read "Children on their Birthdays" twenty years ago. I found so many peculiar characters in the story, but they were all innocent. Also I felt a small dusty town in the south. Peculiar, innocent, and dustythey still impress on me. Three stories of literary calendartwo Christmas stories and one Thanksgiving in this book also take on peculiarity and innocence. Old cousins, dogs, and bullies they are all innocent. And so was Capote. However, I never found "dusty", but "breezy" in these stories. Capote is one of Haruki Murakami's favorite authors, and he translated some Capote's stories into Japanese. He translated them so good that we sometimes notice his original stories and his translation indistinguishable from one another. ... Read more

Book Description
The private letters of Truman Capote, lovingly assembled here for the first time by acclaimed Capote biographer Gerald Clarke, provide an intimate, unvarnished portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most colorful and fascinating literary figures.

Capote was an inveterate letter writer. He wrote letters as he spoke: emphatically, spontaneously, and passionately. Spanning more than four decades, his letters are the closest thing we have to a Capote autobiography, showing us the uncannily self-possessed na•f who jumped headlong into the post—World War II New York literary scene; the more mature Capote of the 1950s; the Capote of the early 1960s, immersed in the research and writing of In Cold Blood; and Capote later in life, as things seemed to be unraveling. With cameos by a veritable who’s who of twentieth century glitterati, Too Brief a Treat shines a spotlight on the life and times of an incomparable American writer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Better than a diary!
When you read personal correspondence written to friends, lovers, and business associates . . . well, it doesn't get any better!Candid, un-censored, witty, funny, revealing, cutting . . . it's all there!A great look at the true Truman Capote.Very interesting.

A sense of Capote
Letters are interesting to read and you get a real feeling for how needy he must have been to be loving everyone so much.
I think it is better to read his biography first, so that you know who the people are in the letters.It's a little confusing otherwise.That's what I plan to do.

Too Much Of A Good Thing
I always loved Truman Capote's writing and looked forward to this book oh, so much, especiallywhen I saw it was edited by the estimable Gerald Clarke, who has written so brilliantly on Capote in his biography (and who also wrote GET HAPPY, a terrific life of Judy Garland).(Hmmm, he must specialize in the tiny.)

But alas Capote's letters just aren't as good as his fiction.They seem hurried, scattered, as though he were writing too fast to revise, everything exactly the opposite of what one likes about the stories and filmscripts.I will say you do get a different side of him, and the outlines of his social world become clearer, so view this compilation as an addendum to the biography, and you won't go far wrong.

I was surprised to see him make so much of (i.e. flatter) Cecil Beaton, it sounded phony.It seems that he treated Newton Arvin pretty well all things put together.Some have said that he "used" Arvin to get ahead and then dumped him once he had found a measure of his own success.But Arvin can't have been an easy guy to live with IMHO.Another interesting correspondent is William Goyen.I think the best letter in all of TOO BRIEF A TREAT is Capote's letter congratulating Goyen on the achievement of THE HOUSE OF BREATH.That letter, in the perfection of its phrases and the conviction of its rapture, is alone worth the price of the book.It's a shame that Goyen later turned on Capote and treated him so shabbily.Good for Gerald Clarke for pointing this out.

Meanwhile the good news for Capote fans is that his novel SUMMER CROSSING, about which many of the letters to Bob Linscott are devoted, has been recovered and now, fifty-plus years later, it might be seeing the light of day.In the interim we will re-read these letters, hoping to scan in more data on the terrific catastrophe that was Truman Capote's life.

Not the treat I was expecting
Truman Capote is one of my all time favorite writers so I was surprised that his letters are somewhat of a disappointment. The letters span 46 years with the majority of them from the late 40s and 50s. It's too bad that there are only a handful of correspondence from Capote's celebrated period following the release of "In Cold Blood," a book which turned him into a celebrity. I suppose he was too busy with his success and celebrity to write letters during this period. There is nothing about his famous Black and White Ball or the infamous article which scandalized the jet set. Hardly anything is here from the 70s either, a period in which he was practically a household name, appearing in movies and talk shows.

What is included are letters to his editors, Robert Linscott and Bennett Cerf, discussing his work and responding to criticism. Many letters to his lovers also are included but Capote seemed to have been very discreet (unlike in public life). Letters to David Selznick and Jennifer Jones give us a glimpse into the years of Hollywood life but very little juicy gossip - they leave the reader wanting more. During the years of Capote's research for "In Cold Blood," he corresponded frequently with Alvin Dewey, the detective in charge of the case, and his wife Marie. These letters are mainly questions from Capote concerning details of the case and Capote providing the Deweys with access to his Hollywood friends. Letters to the Dewey's son, Alvin Jr., show remarkable affection and advice and criticism to an aspiring writer.

Capote was a wanderer and his letters were written from his various residences across the globe - Sicily, Spain, Paris, Switzerland, Venice, California, New York, Alabama, etc. Jack Dunphy, his longtime companion is often mentioned with love and affection. Cecil Beaton and Christopher Isherwood were also frequent correspondents, but again, very little gossip.

The letters do show that Capote was obviously a very compassionate man and despite his biting wit and bitchy persona, they reveal a warm and caring man.

A book for fans of the genre and of the man
"Your letter was too brief a treat, but a treat all the same; there is only one excitement to my day, and that is when the postman comes." So wrote the author who sometimes waited an hour for the best word to come to mind when engaged in concocting a novel, yet spun off letters to friends and colleagues like cotton candy.

Truman Capote, to whom fame came early and lasted long, called all of his correspondents by such adorations as "precious baby, darling child." To almost anyone he was likely to say, "much love, little blue eyes" or "I miss you 24 hours of the day" or "a thousand kisses, precious." It seemed that nearly everyone he wrote to was his darling, his love, and wanted showering with kisses.

Not that he couldn't be cutting and catty, though always with gentility, at least on paper: "I'm afraid he's set fire to too many bridges"; "he's furious because anyone other than himself is here" (of W.H. Auden); and, of Jimmy (James) Baldwin, "his essays are at least intelligent, though they almost invariably end on a fakely hopeful, hymn-singing note."

Of his early work on IN COLD BLOOD he wrote, "This is my last attempt at reportage." Like almost every writer, he wanted to know what the critics were really thinking and get copies of all his reviews. He managed to sound both humble and very puffy when referring to his successes, and terribly anxious about the fate of pieces in progress.

A collection of so very many letters (for that is all the book is) can start to feel water-logged after a while. It's a good thing to recall that posterity will not necessarily be fascinated by one's complaints about the cold, the prices of goods in foreign cities, or the antics of one's pets (and Truman had many). We would all make our letters more artistic and succinct if we imagined that they'd be read generations hence.

So we can speculate on two forking probabilities. One: that Capote well knew that his words would be taken for gemstones ages from now and wrote with the cagey casualness of the omniscient observer. Two: that Capote never imagined for an instant that anyone would collect his letters to friends and place them on the altar of memory for the entire world to see.

I prefer the second alternative, because I like thinking of Capote as a natural, sweet-hearted man, who showed his artistic brilliance to the public but saved his syrup and a touch of spice for his epistolary relationships.

TOO BRIEF A TREAT is a book for fans of the genre and of the man.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott, author of WITH IT: A Year on the Carnival Trail ... Read more

Amazon.com
In Cold Blood was a groundbreaking work when released in 1966.With it, author Truman Capote contributed to a style of writing in which the reporter gets so far inside the subject, becomes so familiar, that he projects events and conversations as if he were really there. The style has probably never been accomplished better than in this book. Capote combined painstaking research with a narrative feel to produce one of the most spellbinding stories ever put on the page. Two two-time losers living in a lonely house in western Kansas are out to make the heist of their life, but when things don't go as planned, the robbery turns ugly. From there, the book is a real-life look into murder, prison, and the criminal mind.Book Description
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces.There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.

In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people.It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.Download Description
With the publication of this book, Capote permanently ripped through the barrier separating crime reportage from serious literature. As he reconstructs the 1959 murder of a Kansas farm family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, Capote generates suspense and empathy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (412)

Best of Capote
The author, Truman Capote, created a new genre of novel with this account of a true crime... The novel is expertly set up with a suspense you might not think could exist. He sets it up artfully by writing that a murder has been committed, and then tracing the backgrounds,and the paths of the killers up to the night of the murder itself, so that the details of the multiple homicide are the climax of the book... Like a Shakespearean drama, there's a "fifth act" of some resolution regarding the fates of the killers and some of the Clutter family friends. I think that this is the author's best book ever. It's full of hope and sadness, good and evil, and it never fails to scrutinize and explore the spaces between two extremes. For more of Truman Capote I suggest The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

classicof the genre
yep, this book is deserving of all the accolades heaped on it since it was published. meticulously researched, masterfully structured and written so that it enters your brain like a narcotic directly into a vein. i started reading this late one night and read for hours. whether you care for true crime genre or have any interest in the crime depicted, you are hooked from the first sentence and can't disengage until you ingest the last perfectly written sentence...wow!

Truman
The book was purchased for a library to replace
a lost copy and the library director was very
pleased.

A Masterpiece
Truman Capote, with major help from Nell Harper Lee, produced groundbreaking work with 1965's In Cold Blood. These days there are probably few readers or film fans not already acquainted with the basic details of the crime upon which Capote based the book: Herb Clutter, his wife and two youngest children, both teenagers, were shot to death in November 1959 in their isolated Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse.Two petty criminals who had recently been paroled by the Kansas prison system were arrested, convicted of the murders and, almost six years after the killings, finally faced the hangman.

By today's standards, sadly enough, this crime does not seem to have been an extremely brutal or sensational one. But 1959 America was not yet numb to this kind of thing and the crime was reported in detail across the country, even grabbing the attention of novelist and short story writer, Truman Capote in New York City. Capote recognized the potential to turn this crime into a book and, with childhood friend Harper Lee in tow, went to Kansas to do his research. But this time, instead of a novel, Capote may have invented something new: a true crime account that reads more like a novel than it does as nonfiction.

In Cold Blood does a masterful job of describing the murders but, as in any good novel, Capote allows the suspense to build for a long time before he reveals the details of those four horrible deaths. In the meantime he has turned the four victims into real people by providing the details of their everyday lives, their hopes and dreams and what each of them meant to the community in which they lived. When Capote's story finally reaches the final minutes of their lives, the reader is left with a sense of the huge waste that happened at the hands of the two rather shallow sociopaths who destroyed them.

Capote performs the same feat with the two killers, turning them into real people, hard as it is to feel any sympathy for either of them. Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were losers in every sense of the word, two callous sociopaths who felt absolutely no sympathy for anyone they criminally victimized, even the four people they murdered. Although it is never mentioned by Capote in his book, he developed a strong relationship with the two from almost the moment they were returned to Kansas to face their accusers. He was especially taken with Perry Smith, the American Indian runt of the pair, and took advantage of that relationship to gain access to many of Smith's personal photos, journals, letters and drawings. He quotes entire letters and passages from the writings of both Smith and Hickock throughout the book, in fact, but only described the photos and drawings that he obtained from Smith.

Capote's In Cold Blood style has been much copied but has seldom been matched. His melding of a fiction style with a true crime account is so complete that it is very easy to forget the book is not, in fact, a novel. This is the book for which Truman Capote will be forever remembered and, considering that nothing quite like it had ever really been accomplished before, it is truly a masterpiece.

Music for Chameleons
The book was a rich characterization that is another demonstration of Capote's genrre of nonfiction novels.In this case, the description might be nonfiction short stories. ... Read more

Book Description
Published when Truman Capote was only twenty-three years old, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a literary touchstone of the mid-twentieth century. In this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to live with the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at Skully’s Landing, the decaying mansion in rural Alabama, his father is nowhere to be found. Instead, Joel meets his morose stepmother, Amy, eccentric cousin Randolph, and a defiant little girl named Idabel, who soon offers Joel the love and approval he seeks.

Fueled by a world-weariness that belied Capote’s tender age, this novel tempers its themes of waylaid hopes and lost innocence with an appreciation for small pleasures and the colorful language of its time and place.

This new edition, featuring an enlightening Introduction by John Berendt, offers readers a fresh look at Capote’s emerging brilliance as a writer of protean power and effortless grace.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (39)

Obvious work of a first time author
Sometimes I think books that are considered "classics" are given good reviews because people, who are told the book is a good read, start to believe it actually is.I thought the book was decent but definitively not worth all the praise it gets.I found the writing choppy and unclear is several places.This was most apparent towards the end when Joel became ill.Maybe I fell asleep but I didn't see any clear indication on what his illness was.This lack of explanation made the story a very tedious read.I'm currently reading a later work by Truman Capote and his writing had vastly improved with age.

Just Incredible! Capote's First Novel Is As Genius As It Is Underrated
Truman Capote's first novel (published when he was just 22 years old!) may very well be his finest. Although "In Cold Blood" gets all the acclaim, "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is just as powerful in terms of message and is even better (in my opinion) in terms of writing. Capote uses words to paint a gorgeous and vivid portrait of the Deep South like no other writer can. The way that Capote uses prose in this book is just incredible. Even if you've never been to the American South, you can get the feel for it's hot days, tall shady pines and Indian grass. When I read this book, I feel as if I am right there beside the main characters. "Other Voices, Other Rooms" tells the story of 12 year old Joel Knox. After the death of his mother, Joel is summoned by his father (whom he has not seen since he was an infant) to come live at a sprawling and decaying antibellum mansion in rural Alabama. Upon arriving however, Joel finds no sign of his father. Instead, he encounters a bizzare and freakish cast of characters ranging from a friendly black servant girl to a borderline stepmother to a seemingly friendly older cousin with a taste for some disturbing (and very adult) pleasures. During his time at the mansion, Joel discovers old family secrets and uncovers the tragic truth about his father. He also makes a very personal discovery about himself. For anyone who enjoys good old fashion disturbing Southern Gothic, "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is a must read. I have read it three times in the last few years and each time it just gets better and better. Capote's deeply moving coming of age story is largely unnoticed today and that is a shame because "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is an amazingly good start to an amazingly good writing career.

Sparkling and Intriguing Capote in His First Novel
Eight years after William Faulkner published THE HAMLET, the first portion of his acclaimed Snopes family chronicle, and roughly ten years before the other two novels of the trilogy, THE TOWN (1957) and THE MANSION (1959) appeared, a remarkable first novel by Truman Capote arrived on the Southern literary scene. Just as Faulkner's full trilogy would come to symbolize the seemingly irresistible and inevitable decay of the post-Civil War South, so too did the young Capote's OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS depict the Deep South as a frayed and unhealthy vestige of its former self. Here we have it all - a desolate ruin of a formerly noble estate now quite literally sinking four inches a year into its own grave, a brother and sister who at least implicitly evidence the despoilage and grinding lassisitude of inbreeding, bizarre marital arrangements straight out of Baby Jane, slavery in spirit if not in fact, and a half-hearted homosexuality devolved into a despoiled and dissolute ennui. If anything, it's almost too much, a hand overplayed to the point of caricature

The basic story line is simple. Twelve-year-old Joel Sansom is shipped out of New Orleans by his caretaking Aunt Ellen to finally meet his absent-since-birth father Edward Sansom at a manor called Skully's Landing. Joel quickly discovers that he has left the big city world of the Big Easy for the small town South, with Skully's Landing existing in an isolated netherworld well beyond the edge of the closest small town of Noon City. The manor is now home to Joel's father, a nearly Siamese-attached brother and sister Randolph and Amy (the former a pompous and lazy effete, the latter a spineless neurotic), and a black maid named Missouri who goes by the name Zoo and whose father is named Jesus Fever. Young Joel is utterly confounded by this crew and mystified by his inability to meet the father whom he has been told lives there. His only consolation is two neighboring sisters, Florabel and Idabel Thompkins. Idabel in particular catches Joel's fancy by her combination of tomboyish behavior and naïve but not altogether innocent sensuality. In the end, young Joel learns the peculiar truth about Randolph and his father, one that intertwines with the fate of a prizefighter named Pepe Alvarez and a sensual, dream-recording woman named Dolores (dolorous?).

Capote's first novel to enter onto the literary stage is at once Southern Gothic in setting yet contemporary in its content. Right from his opening pages, Capote brings the slashing insights and brilliant command of phrase and language to OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS that he continued to display in his later works. In his first paragraph, before we have met a single character, Capote issues a foreshadowed warning about "luminous green logs that shine under the dark marsh water like drowned corpses." Skully's Landing is a place where "the sun was locked in a tomb of clouds," where "folks came when they went off the face of the earth, when they died but were not dead," where "copper waterbugs swung on intricate trapezes of insects' thread, and fungus-flowered fist-size on the wet decrepit wood."

While Truman Capote properly remains best known for IN COLD BLOOD and BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, his earliest novel deserves equally to be read and savored. It is a literary oddity, a coming of age story set amid the decaying ruins of a family and a society. One could readily imagine Capote seeing the Randolph in himself while identifying with young Joel's search for his place in the world. And when all is said and done, OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS feels remarkably life-affirming. How better to sum up Capote's own life and work?

Fabulous Capote
When you read this book, you will see just why the critics went nuts over this young writer.His character is haunting and reveals the complex nature of its author.The allegory is apparent as we see a young man who, from being abandoned has to interpret the world around him without insight from any dependable adult.He sees its beauties and debaucharies and he comes to conclusions that one would expect from a wizened old soul.

Literary Masterpiece
This is an incredibly beautiful, intricately constructed book; I have read it 6-7 times in the past few years and with each reading one discovers new images, deeper layers of symbolism. Capote uses words like Mozart used notes; there are passages that shine less than most, but that too is necessary. If you grew up in the country, this book will paint florid Persian carpet patterns of nature in your minds eye. Mindboggling when you remember how young Truman was when this was published... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Unanswered Anticipation
I am usually an enraptured fan of Capote's work.Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of his critics and former friends on this one.He plays around with a work that can be either a confessional or a gossip column or an introspection of fringe society.I was disappointed that his beautiful and haunting words were affected by his alcoholic and drug-induced ramblings. His talent for invoking tragic images without being crass was lost here.

Unanswered gems

Although "Answered Prayers" can be read as dated since most of it's "characters" live in the 1960's and 1970's, there is still marvelous prose and stories that pique the interest.Capote had promised to complete several short stories for this tome, but this collection contains only three.All of them are marvels to read, but the last, "La Cote Basque", is a stinging expose of the New York Socialite clique.Not only does Capote mention real celebrities, but he also exposes the deepest and darkest secrets of high society with a thin veil.It's no wonder he was ostracized from this egregious group.Some of the events he describes are beyond scandalous, yet witty and viciously funny.He somehow manages to bring the `so-called' social deviants to the same level as the most respected socialites, making it clear that money is the only difference.

The Editor's Note is the most intriguing part of the book, as it describes how Capote managed to promise to produce these stories for years without delivering and obtained millions from the publishers, enabling him to live with a high level of social activity.He was a celebrity as well as an author and a clever, if not conniving man.The biggest tragedy is that so many stories will never be read due to his early alcoholic induced death.Still, these three stories are inspired gems.

answered prayers
Oh My GOD!This is by far one of the most disturbing, amazingly tragic books that I have ever read.Buy this book and feel the pain and suffering that only Truman Capote can emote in the written word.Damn him for not finishing it, and pity us for being denied the finished work.

ACID CAPOTE
To read this odd book is to get a real look at Truman Capote at the end of his life.Capote was vain, bitchy, narcissistic, but alas the profoundly weird old queen was fascinating.He was truely unique, he made himself a superstar, he willed it so, this man was nakedly ambitious, he makes Trump look like a piker.This book ruined him and probably led to increased alcoholism, that ultimatly caused his death at sixty.When he wrote an excert of this book in a top magazine of the day, he became persona non grata among the brahman class of New York.This was Capote's own personal hell.It shows his arrogance and narcissism that he did not see that a book like this would make these people close ranks and ostracize him, he was stunned that they stopped taking his calls and dropped him from their party lists, they broke his heart and frankly I'm sure the parties were considerable less amusing with Truman gone.In this book you see in Capote a really unhappy man, that relished in the misfortune of others, but having said that I do find his dish very interesting, what does that say about me, lol.I believe that after he became a sensation after the great In Cold Blood, he really was paralized, he knew people expected another book of singular greatness, I think this absolutely destroyed him and he was so desperate that he conceived this ill advised book, it makes you understand why Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger never published a book after their masterpieces, Truman should have looked to his childhood friend Lee as an example, but he could not resist the spotlight and he wanted that feeling of adulation again.I recommend this book, it is not Capote's best work, of course, but it is something of a memoir and you get an unflinching look at this complex man.

Capricious Capote
Capote's unfinished work is definitely worth reading but read his other stuff first.It takes a seasoned Capote fanatic to really enjoy this book.It is a shame that he never finished it.After reading "Kate McCloud" I could not wait to find out what would happen next, but I guess no one will ever know.And we all want to read La Cote Basque 1965 to get the real dirt.

But the truth is that Capote was indeed a gifted writer who left us very little to read.So take it all in, even these "tell all" stories that have less significance than his earlier work.
... Read more

Book Description
Contains:

Breakfast at Tiffany's
House of Flowers
A Diamond Guitar
A Christmas Memory ... Read more

Customer Reviews (97)

Delightful Reading
If you enjoyed the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" this is a book you should read.If you have not, but have enjoyed other stories by Truman I believe this gives a wonderful insight as to who he is.

Touching, brilliantly written
Well written and cathartic. Be warned, don't go in expecting the movie; the characters are there, as is a simlar story, but the ending is different, and what was skeletal in the film is fleshed out into greater depth here. If you want an equivalent experience in film (though without one of the most strikingly romantic paragraph-long passages you'll find written in this language), try "Almost Famous," which essentially has the same characters and plot points as this book.

A touching rumination on wanting something that you know you can't have and shouldn't want, almost but not quite getting it, and come to terms with everything that means.

A great little story
This is a great little story that I read in two short sittings. Truman Capote's poetic use of words is wonderful. His writing is descriptive and poetic, but never stodgy or long winded. He also has a humor to his writing in this story which I like a lot. Holly Golightly is a wonderful character, she is very hard to figure out, for he reader and the narrator, but that is part of her character.Being a male, its especially interesting how Capote can write a young woman like Holly so well.

Even though this book was written over 50 years ago, the writing is fresh, has a great flow to it, and is timeless.

A classic
I got this book because I love the movie, and now I can say I greatly appreciate the book also. It is always nice when a movie follows a book well and not make their own story and just use the title. But this is definitely a book i read again and again. The other stories in the collection were good also.

Nice introduction to Truman Capote's work
Like many others here, I was inspired to read Truman Capote's work for the first time after seeing the movie Capote.I thought that starting with In Cold Blood would be too dark, so I chose Breakfast at Tiffany's instead.Surprisingly, this orginal work is not nearly as light and cavalier as the famed film version.Although the movie stuck fairly closely to the actual plot, Holly is a much deeper character than her excellent portrayal by Aubrey Hepburn would suggest.There are nuances to her story that are completely left out of the on-screen version, including a poignant conclusion that is nowhere near a Hollywood ending.Overall, however, Breakfast at Tiffany's is an excellent read, at it alone is deserving of a 5-star rating.

While Breakfast at Tiffany's is more of a novella, the other tales in this book are simply short stories, and I found them to be much less compelling.House of Flowers is a sort of off-beat romance, some of which I found to be disturbing and with an ending that I found to be unsatisfying.A Diamond Guitar was more moving yet quite depressing.Finally, A Christmas Memory, the best of the three, was a sweet tale of a young boy's special bond with a much older relative.

If you are looking for an entry point to Truman Capote's work, this book would be a good place to start familiarizing yourself with this talented, important writer. ... Read more

Book Description
Set on the outskirts of a small Southern town, The Grass Harp tells the story of three endearing misfits--an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies--who one day take up residence in a tree house. AS they pass sweet yet hazardous hours in a china tree, The Grass Harp manages to convey all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom. But most of all it teaches us about the sacredness of love, "that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life."

This volume also includes Capote's A Tree of Night and Other Stories, which the Washington Post called "unobstrusively beautiful...a superlative book." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

A Capote Collection
Truman Capote's gift for the written word brings marvel even in comparison to great literary geniuses.While "The Grass Harp" may not be the best exhibition of his talent, it is a brush stroke in his overall masterwork.

The centerpeice of this particular book is "The Grass Harp", an odd book which brings to mind Steinbeck's Cannery Row.As an odd tale about simple people in a small town, the main characters are merely looking for a place to lay their head at the end of the day.Even if living in a tree is the best possible shelter for a time, it is the ideal retreat from the forces that trouble them.The short stories that follow also have a few gems.I recommend a tale of disapproving in-laws called "My Side of the Matter", the mysterious "Miriam", and the tale of an idiot savant in "Jug of Silver".With some of the other short stories in the collection, I am not as sure of where Capote was going as clearly.Perhaps rereading the others at a later date will draw greater appreciation from me.

Capote's ability to choose and arrange words alone makes reading his work a real treat.If only modern writers had half of his talent and insight.Even though this is not his best collection, it is a treasure to fans and admirers.

A Word Portrait
This early Novella by Truman Capote clearly demonstrates his ability to put together a word portrait.As an example: "... I would hear the tantalizing tremor of their voices flowing like sapsyrup through the old wood."

The characters are richly portrayed in this gem of Southern fiction.

A Great and Touching Novel
Capote found his full voice in this, his second novel.It is a fantasy based on characters from his own life, including himself, his aunt Sook Faulk, to whom the book is dedicated "in memory of affections deep and true", another aunt, and their servant.

Capote's prose is beautiful and lucid as it carries the reader through the book at a swift pace, and this novel achieves the rare combination of ease of reading with depth of thought and emotion.

A Miracle of Writing: Capote's Genius at Full Throttle
[I wrote this review in 1999 as "A Reader." I hope more people read it and read this book.]
For years I've known about this work but never read it until now. I've been fishing about in contemporary fiction, looking for something entertaining, enlightening, and superbly well written, but my search ended entirely when I finally read this novel, written in 1951. Set in the South, in the countryside, this story brilliantly draws you into its magical surroundings. Its three main characters, Dolly, Collin, and Catherine, are real presences that emerge from the lush southern environs as complex, blooming beings whose lives take time to develop and understand. There is nothing slick about this writing; it's just classically elegant and clear. The story is packed with interesting people and proceeds as if inspired by Twain. It is entertaining, poetic, and meaningful all at once. I found myself rereading the opening pages, picturing the scene, and feeling how brilliant the writing was in its elegiac and inspired imagery. The story is simple: a young boy, orphaned, lives with his two eccentric aunts in a small town in the South. One aunt is mean-spirited and selfish, and the other is sweet, other-worldly, and gentle. When the mean aunt tries to exploit the sweet one by mass producing a folk medicine remedy the sweet aunt learned about from a traveling gypsy woman, the sweet aunt runs away from home with the orphan boy and her best friend, a strange Indian woman. They don't run too far, however, just to a tree house in a nearby China tree. From that point on, everyone learns something about themselves. This southern world is a generous place to Truman Capote, and it has mercies to give and lessons to be learned. In fact, it's something of a magical world, almost a precursor of the magical realism of Marquez and others. But as the characters learn about themselves, so we the readers learn too, about what love is, about change, and about what we accept in life. For Capote to have written this book at the age of 26 is truly a miracle. This book alone puts him in league with the literary giants. I highly recommend "The Grass Harp" to anyone looking for that one great book to read and treasure.

An Often Overlooked Gem
TRUMAN CAPOTE's wrote THE GRASS HARP early in his career and it is an often overlooked gem.This sweet, eccentric, moving and decidedly southern tale is the leisurely paced story of the repercussions that ensue when three townfolk decide to up and run away to live in a treehouse on the outskirts of town.Three quickly becomes five and eventually swells to even more as the makeshift home becomes a sort of paradise and refuge where stories are shared, closeness is established, and love blooms....think FLANNERY O'CONNOR meets SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON with a dash of STEEL MAGNOLIAS.Themes of finding one's place and path and making oneself known are skillfully woven into the narrative.It has the feel of a fantastic and utterly charming myth.Primary assets are the "thick as molasses" southern mood and syntax as well as a bevy of unforgettable characters. ... Read more

Book Description
By the age of 21, Truman Capote was seen as the most promising young talent of 1945. His masterpiece, In Cold Blood, proved to be an amalgamation of his journalistic talent, his astute observations, and his skill at creating lifelike dialogue and characterizations. Learn more about Capote with this edition of Bloom's Modern Critical Views.

This title, Truman Capote, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Modern Critical Views series, examines the major works of Truman Capote through full-length critical essays by expert literary critics. In addition, this title features a short biography on Truman Capote, a chronology of the author's life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

ENTERTAINING, EASY READING
While I am not particularly a fan of Truman Capote's writing, I found this book to be highly entertaining. It gives a true and accurate account of life in small-town Alabama and is filled with humorous tales of the escapades of three young friends during the Great Depression. It is also a moving and poignant tale of a young boy's struggle to belong, and offers insight into the eccentricities of Mr. Capote. The stories are short, so this book makes for good reading when time is short (like during break-time at work!). I think this book would be entertaining to people from small towns as well as large cities, and Capote fans as well as non-Capote fans.

Insightful and Charming
Essentially the recollections of Truman Capote's cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter, this book recounts the childhood years that Truman spent in Monroeville, Alabama growing up with Jennings and Nelle Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird." It contains descriptions of actual events that appear in Capote's later writings, and thus will be of interest to readers of his fiction, but the writing is pleasurable in its own right.

Fascinated by the number of good writers who have come out of such a small town (there are others), I drove two hours each way to visit Monroeville while on a business trip to Mobile several years ago. Even though it has grown substantially since Truman grew up there, it remains a lovely southern town, with wide verandas, shade trees and a courthouse that is not to be missed.

This account of Capote's early years-funny and also sad
I was drawn to this book because the man who provided these anecdotes about Capote's early years to the author, Marianne Moates, is my first cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter.He is Capote's first cousin also.Thestories told by Carter mostly came on summer visits to his Alabama home byyoung Truman Capote who was partly raised by divorced parents in NewOrleans and New York and his eccentric aunts and uncles in Monroeville,Alabama.There are many accounts of the childhood experiencenes of thethreesome-Jennings Carter, Truman Capote and Nell Harper Lee("To Killa Mockingbird") Although some of the stories are hilarious, there isan underlying theme of brokenness, divorce, and alcohol abuse that shapedyoung Truman Capote into a talented but confused, effiminate, alcoholichomosexual. The book was more interesting to me for the simple fact thatit deals with some of my relatives and some of my childhool memories.I amsaddened, however, that many of Truman Capote's adult problems seem to havecome from a childhood full of strife, mistrust, conflict, substance abuseand family instabiliy. ... Read more

Book Description
In these gems of reportage Truman Capote takes true stories and real people and renders then with the stylistic brio we expect from great fiction. Here we encounter an exquisitely preserved Creole aristocrat sipping absinthe in her Martinique salon; an enigmatic killer who sends his victims announcements of their forthcoming demise; and a proper Connecticut householder with a ruinous obsession for a twelve-year-old girl he has never met. And we meet Capote himself, who, whether he is smoking with his cleaning lady or trading sexual gossip with Marilyn Monroe, remainds one of the most elegant, malicious, yet compassionate writers to train his eye on the social fauna of our time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

In his own words
In the truest sense of the word, Truman Capote is a wordsmith.Even before looking at the context of a story, I am amazed by Capote's ability to to craft words together in a sentence for a powerful meaning.While I wish I had half of his writing talent, I also wish more contemporary writers were as gifted in composing prose as Capote.

In large part, "Music for Chameleons" fits into Capote's unique category "the non-fiction novel".I have noticed other reviewers have disputed some of the facts in this book which I will leave for them to debate.For purposes of this review, I will state that I enjoyed this book as will many others that are familiar with Capote's writing and the celebrity culture with which he was engrained.Aside from a small minority, the stories focused on ordinary people.The interview with Marilyn Monroe reveals a quirky side of her character which sheds light on a different side of her as a person.While I thought "Handcarvered Coffins" was the highlight of the set, I also enjoyed stories like "A Day's Work" and Hello, Stranger."

Some readers may pick and choose which stories from this set that they read or even enjoy.It is appropriate that Capote closed the collection with a self-interview.While initially evasive in his self-interview, Capote bring the collection of stories full circle with a beautiful simple theme.

Fabulous after thirty years
I read this the first time when it was first published in the 1970's, but, after re-reading it, I really didn't get the message.I got it this time.If I were to list the five best books I've read, this would be near the top of that list.

I Read and Enjoyed Every LIne of Every Page
This is a good collection of short stories that entertains while his writing reveals a lot about the writer himself.

I have a read some of Capote's other works and his book "In Cold Blood" must be one of his best, if not the best, although he became famous a decade earlier for "Other Voices, Other Rooms" in the late 1940s. Here we see the other side of Capote: the short story artist. In fact, Capote is probably more famous for his short stories and magazine articles. He was a two time winner of the O'Henry award for his short stories.

This is a great book because it presents a wide range of stories about his life in New Orleans, New York, Hollywood, and his encounters with other people such as Pearl Bailey and Marilyn Monroe.

There are shades of "In Cold Blood" here as well; he has two short stories on crime: one a mid-west crime similar to his famous book, and another interviewing a member of the Manson family in California.

This is a book that I could not put down. My favourite short story here is the one where he follows a cleaning lady in New York for a day. They end up smoking a joint at one of her client's homes and then they dance around the kitchen after eating some chocolate cake taken (or stolen) from the client's fridge.

In any case this is a good introduction to Capote and it is a well balanced collection of his short works. The final story is a self interview of Capote. It is all very entertaining and as a bonus gives us a good insight into of the author's mind.

5 Stars.

Pretty entertaining, but not entirely factual
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A SPOILER.

I read Music for Chameleons when it first came out and enjoyed the vignettes. I also enjoyed "Handcarved Coffins" but suspected that it wasn't completely true. That didn't diminish my enjoyment of it though. True or not (and there seems to be good evidence that it is fiction) it is still a compelling read.

Having re-read this recently, I still enjoyed "Handcarved Coffins" and was reminded of a glaring error I remembered from the first time around (and what probably made me think the account wasn't completely factual) and that error is when Addie is telling her story to Capote for the first time she says she is 44 years old.

SPOILER BELOW!!!




After she has died, Addie's sister sends Capote a photo of Addie as a memento with the dates of her birth and death written on the back: 1939-1975. All of my math has this worked out to 36 years. An 8 year age gap is a pretty hefty error and indicates a bit of sloppiness on the part of Capote (and his editor). That made me realize that Capote wasn't as careful as he thought, but since at this time in his life he was pretty drug and alcohol addled, he probably was just sloppy. That's where the editor should have come in and caught the error.


END OF SPOILER.


Nonetheless, it is still a good read. That error was just something that caught me and stayed with me as I was finishing the story.

The other piece I really enjoyed was "A Day's Work" in which Capote tags along with his cleaning woman as she goes to her various cleaning jobs.

Overall, a good selection of short pieces. "Handcarved Coffins" stands out, but it is probably best that you don't believe a word of it. Just read the story and enjoy it.

Great Writing
This is a collection of Capote's shorter non-fiction works first published in 1979. The contents include:

I. Music for Chameleons
One. Music for Chameleons
Two. Mr. Jones
Three. A Lamp in the Window
Four. Mojave
Five. Hospitality
Six. Dazzle

II. Handcarved Coffins
A Nonfiction Account of an American Crime

III. Conversational Portraits
One. A Day's Work
Two. Hello, Stranger
Three. Hidden Gardens
Four. Derring-do
Five. Then It All Came Down
Six. A Beautiful Child
Seven. Nocturnal Turnings

All of these works are enjoyable, but "Handcarved Coffins" stands out from the pack. A true masterpiece that will keep you sitting on the edge of your chair and that you'll remember forever. It alone is worth the price of the book.
... Read more

Book Description
One of the most controversial American authors of the twentieth century, Truman Capote is best known as the author of In Cold Blood (1966), a work of literary journalism that recounts the slaughter of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. But he also wrote numerous short stories, dozens of nonfiction pieces for popular magazines, several other novels, and some works for Hollywood and Broadway. Unlike In Cold Blood, many of his earlier works were criticized for their focus on character at a time when other writers were using fiction to explore historical events and social and political positions. Since his death in 1984, scholarly interest in Capote and his works has grown considerably. Over the last few decades, the reaction to his works has been rich and varied. This volume chronicles the critical reception to Capote's writings. Included are previously published reviews and essays, along with several pieces written especially for this book. The selections are grouped in several broad sections, which examine such topics as overviews and interviews, the genres in which he wrote, and his particular works, his literary documentaries, and his relation to other writers and critics. Each section is organized chronologically and traces not only the development of Capote's talents but also the evolution of critical attitudes toward his works. Both favorable and unfavorable analyses by commentators and scholars such as Ihab Hassan, George Jean Nathan, Leslie Fiedler, Diana Trilling, Kenneth Tynan, and many others provide a balanced view of Capote's writings. A comprehensive introduction covers the materials included in the book along with many other relevant texts, and extensive bibliographic material records the present state of Capote scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A nice, comprehensive work
I did my Junior Paper on Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," and while doing research in the NY Public library, I came across this book.It was by and far the most helpful of the sources I found.This is acompilation of various essays from literary critics who comment on many ofCapote's works.I firmly believe that this book gave me a solid foundationin the analyzing of Mr. Capote's novel as well as a better understandingand familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of his works.I would recommendthis book to anyone who is attempting to gain critical input on Capote, aswell as to anyone who is simply interested in Capote's writing.Theobvious drawback is the stratospheric price, but if you can stomach it,this book offers nothing but quality. ... Read more

Book Description
From instant celebrity at age 23 to overweight, alcoholic loner in his 50s, Truman Capote streaked across the middle of this century on a comet of genius, self-destruction, and fame. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with Capote and with nearly everyone who knew him, and with exclusive access to personal papers, Gerald Clarke has written the definitive biography of an incomparable man and his time.
"Extraordinary . . . Rich in intelligence and compassion . . . One can't put the book down. Few literary biographies in recent memory have been so vivid and absorbing." -- Bruce Bawer, The Wall Street Journal ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

I've read better
This has to be the second worst book that I've read in along time.Hisflings and the details that the writer goes into aren't always that interesting. The writer does name namesand some are a shock and make you think.However, saying that the book could of been pared down at least 75 pages by omitting some details of his love life I didn't care to know.

Tragic Triumphant Truman
After seeing the two movies about Truman Capote's writing of "In Cold Blood" ('Capote' and 'Infamous'), I wanted to first read the letters he'd written during this period which helped me to understand what really went on sans the Hollywood-izing of the story.But the letters were even better - juicier and more colourful than any Hollywood version; and I was compelled to read most of the rest of them from other periods in his life.

Then I read some of his short stories (starting with