Truman Capote (1924–1984)

I am second to none in my admiration for Truman Capote's major work, In Cold Blood, but it isn't a feel-good read or an uplifting one. This story is both.

It is perfectly constructed. It leads the reader from room to room, place to place, experience to memory, without ever breaking the literary fourth wall. Yes, it's a memory, in French this form would be called a récit; but it's never Narrated By A Future Self. Seldom does a wide-ranging reader come across so perfect an example of a memory show more told as a story as ordinarily authors use this technique in order to comment on either the nature of or the facts within a memory.

Capote tells his adult readers what happened on one happy day and leaves them to it.

There is always an element of summary in any memory, in any récit (brief, streamlined novelish things that they are); here it is the outgrowth of listening to the man Capote's story instead of Capote Making A Point.

This is a favorite reading experience for me and has stood well the cruel test of time when periodically re-read. If this is your first reading of it, I am glad for you that you have found your way here. I hope to see you in our company again soon. show less

The famed novella that constitutes the bulk of this collection is everything you might have guessed it would be and more. It is everything in that it is liberally populated by the extreme and outré characters that appear in the equally famous film based on it. They are simply more extreme, almost other-worldly, and more wise and venomous. Holly Golightly is both vapid and insightful. But also terribly, terribly young. And yet so sadly worldly wise. The environment positively reeks of sex show more and desire, but also a pervading hopelessness, except for those whose dreams remain (somewhat) pure. And there is no doubt that a St Christopher’s pendant from Tiffany’s represents the most that any of them can hope for. Thoroughly impressive writing that will stay with you a very long time.

The three short stories that bulk out this collection are less well-rounded though probably still highly outré. One is set on the island of Haiti, one is set is a southern prison camp, and the last is set in an extremely poor household during the depression. Each is fine in its way, but set against the brilliance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, they pale by comparison.

Recommended. show less

I grew up in a small town in Kansas not unlike Holcomb where the Clutter family lived. Two men entered their home one November night in 1959 through an unlocked door. They bound and gagged the four family members in the house and then shot them at close range with a shotgun. The closest home was far enough away that the neighbors didn't hear the blasts. Nobody knew anything was amiss until friends showed up the next day to attend church with the family and were met with complete silence. The show more Clutters were dead.

I read this book for the first time in 8th grade. It was before the days of permission slips for controversial books....and I don't believe the district where I went to school ever banned a book. I had read every other book on the required reading list for my class and my teacher didn't know what to do with me. He finally decided to go rogue, and began handing me books from his personal library. The Mouse that Roared. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Invisible Man. The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. And....In Cold Blood.

I was profoundly affected by In Cold Blood. I was growing up....and learning the lesson that The World could be a very unsafe place. People could be hurt or even killed by complete strangers...for no reason. Good people....who never did anything harmful or wrong to others....could end brutally and unjustly. The idea first entered my head when John Lennon was gunned down in 1980 on the sidewalk outside his apartment in NYC by a stranger. I remember being dazed when I realized that a complete stranger could walk up, point a gun, and kill ANYBODY without any explanation or cause whatsoever. It shocked and scared me. Then a year later, I read In Cold Blood....it added to the awakening. A family asleep in their small town farm house.....good people. Kind people. They thought they were safe....safe enough to leave their doors unlocked at night. It was a mistake.

I have never slept a night in any house with an unlocked door since I read this book in 1982. Never.

It wasn't the description of the Clutters, their lives, their deaths that got to me.....it was more the fact that Truman Capote also described the killers in detail. Their lives. Their families. Their feelings, emotions, motivations. I found myself feeling sorry for them....abused children, hard lives, brutal lessons. I learned another adult lesson -- every human being is a person, even brutal murderers. There are reasons that people go down a dark path. This book taught me that not all children have happy, safe lives....some parents are abusive, some drink, use drugs, abandon their families. I lived a sheltered life in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea that some kids had brutal lives. There is a space in time where every child grows up, starts to learn adult lessons and learns the truth about the world.....my awakening was filled with so many things. The Iran hostage crisis. The assassination of Anwar Sadat. John Lennon shot. Reagan shot. And....this book.

I want to watch the movie Capote, so I decided to revisit In Cold Blood first. I wondered if it would still bother me like it did when I first read it in 1981. I find this book had much more power when read by 13-year old me than it does several decades later. I have lived through so much, seen so much, read so much that it no longer shocks me that bad things happen to good people. I am no longer the innocent unworldly girl that didn't realize that people kill each other over silly things like money....or for no reason at all.

There are rumors that Capote took liberties with the facts while writing In Cold Blood. Even if he did, the book is still masterfully written and tells both sides of the story. The Clutters. Perry Smith. Richard Hickock.

I listened to the audio version of this book (Books on Tape) and let Scott Brick read me Capote's words. I found myself thinking the what-if questions -- what if those kids had lived and gone on to have wonderful lives....what would have happened to Smith and Hickock if they hadn't killed the Clutter family that night.....what if, what if, what if. So I guess my final thoughts are that yes...this book still affects me profoundly. But...differently. Instead of thoughts about the world not being safe and being surprised by that.....I found myself feeling sad that all of these lives were ruined, wasted, ended. Nancy and Kenyon Clutter would have done so much as adults, but they never got the chance. Herb and Bonnie Clutter would have lived out their days on their Kansas farm. Maybe Perry Smith and Richard Hickock wouldn't have been hanged in a Kansas prison. Lives wasted. For nothing. As a 50-year old grandmother, this book makes me sad.....as a 13-year old girl this book made me scared and shocked. Still emotional. Just different.

And that in itself makes me sad, too. I wish I was still shocked by a tale about an entire family gunned down in their own home. It says something about the world we live in that the story isn't shocking anymore.

Now, I'm going to go read a middle grade book about something magical or watch something on Disney channel to clear my head. And I'm going to check .... just to make sure .....that the front door is LOCKED.

Sigh. show less

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" is one of those stories that is such a classic that I can't recall anyone actually ever telling me about it; it has just been there in my greater awareness for decades. Last night I was sitting in my armchair, and noticed a vintage paperback copy of it on the floor next to me. I've never read it before, so I picked it up, and gave it a go in one sitting (it is only 85 pages long, and small pages at that).

ENERGETIC POIGNANCE
Immediately you can see why it is famous. It show more has the poignance and attention to emotional and energetic detail that you also find in a book like "Anna Karenina." "Perhaps my face explained she'd misconstrued, that I'd not wanted advice but congratulations: her mouth shifted from a town into a smile" (page 44). It's exchanges like this—where, if we were there, much of the interaction would be perceived subconsciously so that we don't even notice it happening—that bring a surreal clarity to the work.

AMERICAN PRINCESS ARCHETYPE
And then there's the content. Truman's homosexuality has not deterred from the way he has captured the iconic 20th century American princess. The racism and sexism condemns this story as a barbaric 20th century beast. Despite (maybe because of?) Capote's bigotry, he has captured a certain archetype that has significant cultural weight.

Our protagonist, Holly Golightly, is a whirlwind. You want her attention. Her world is under the compression of a sound engineer; she's so blasé about bringing you into the intimate folds of her life, and simultaneously it is as though nothing matters. Due to your infatuation, this leaves you desirous of her affections, which come like rain during climate change—unpredictable and inundating.

With a fleeting fondness, I recall the Holly Golightly's I've encountered, in all their intensity, spontaneity, and ephemerality. The evenings splitting a bottle of red wine at the retreat house in the Rockies followed by a two-person dance party. The mornings in the shower, washing each other's bodies. Holding hands while walking across the park, wondering at the perception of onlookers. Skinny dipping in the mountain streams. Kissing on the half-erected frame of a barn at sunset. Picking strawberries under a midnight full-moon. Watching the way eyes and hearts follow them across the dance floor. The pastels of dawn after an all-night conversation.

There's a timelessness to these experiences, not just because there's no knowing whether the next fling might be a decade or a lifetime away.

Setting aside our wistfulness and psychoses of longing, it seems there's still something essential about the human experience that Truman relates here, somehow tied into themes of innocent awe—of one another and the world.

FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE
And then there's the easygoing storytelling style Capote utilizes. Its him, telling his own story. He didn't try to tell the story from someone else's perspective, which may be why he was able to tell something so exceedingly relatable—there was no translation across identities necessary.

The story has a nostalgic feel to it, due to it being set in the past tense, a recollection of the iconic years of youth; "There is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment" (page 9).

I recently picked up my dogeared copy of "The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats." Reading publications like Bookforum and the New Yorker, it's easy to see the continuous strand of slick New York hipster coming through. And, at the same time, I'm left wondering—was Capote a beatnik? Was this story frame-breaking for the 1950s? This is something I don't know. show less