Excepțională!! Cartea a vibrat in mintea mea pe măsură ce o citeam rămânându-i ecoul mult după ce am terminat lectura. Mai profundă decât Mic dejun la Tiffany, am sorbit-o cat de repede am putut.

Grady, o adolescentă bogată, rebelă și neconvențională, face parte dintr-un triunghi amoros idilic. Soarta protagonistei se dovedește a fi nefastă din cauza alegerilor ei nesăbuite.

“ În general, lumea o privea, unii o priveau pentru ca sugera genul de tânără atrăgătoare căreia ti-ar face plăcere să-i fii prezentat la o petrecere, alții pentru ca știau ca este Grady McNeil, fiica unui om important. Și mai erau câțiva, puțini, ale căror priviri erau reținute dintr-o altă rațiune: pentru ca, sub aerul ei de voință și de farmec privilegiat, intuiau ca e o fata căreia urma să i se întâmple ceva.”

Rămas până după moartea autorului la stadiul de manuscris, cartea este o capodoperă!

I've never thought of Truman Capote as an especial favorite of mine, but each book of his I've read has hit me right in that sweet spot where wisdom, satire, tragedy, and longing come together, and I find myself hanging on every word and then doodling our initials within heart shapes all over my notebooks.

The jacket copy for "Summer Crossing" understands, calling the book a "precocious, confident first novel that displays...nearly perfect prose and flawless narrative," rife with "immaculate turns of phrase, hard irony, and insight into the subtleties of class distinction." Yes. Come to mama.

The plot vibes in some obvious ways like "Gatsby" (lordy but I love a trashy classic), and while it's easy to compare the main character to Holly Golightly, I thought she gave off bigger Frankie Addams energy (see who I compare *her* to in my review of "The Member of the Wedding"), and I think Capote really nailed her type. The book isn't perfect (the author sat on it for decades and said he didn't want to publish it, and he even once let it get put out with the trash), but it's a truly solid book, with wickedly good characterizations, spot-on teen musings, and a narrative built like a train engine bolting down the track with nothing to slow it down.

Some great stuff:

"She held fast to the balloon all through lunch, as if her own happiness bobbed and strained at the string."

"What infinite energies are wasted steeling oneself against crisis that seldom comes: the strength to move mountains; and yet it is perhaps this very waste, this torturous wait for things that never happen, which prepares the way and allows one to accept with sinister serenity the beast at last in view."

"It was wilting out on Lexington Avenue, and especially so since they'd just left an air-conditioned theater; with every step heat's stale breath yawned in their faces. Starless nightfall sky had closed down like a coffin lid, and the avenue, with its newsstands of disaster and flickering fly-buzz sounds of neon, seemed an elongated, stagnant corpse. The pavement was wet with a rain of electric color; passersby, stained by these humid glares, changed color with chameleon alacrity: Grady's lips turned green, then purple....Hot weather opens the skull of a city, exposing its white brain, and its heart of nerves, which sizzle like the wires inside a lightbulb. And there exudes a sour extra-human smell that makes the very stone seem flesh-alive, webbed and pulsing."

"Most of life is so dull it is not worth discussing, and it is dull at all ages. When we change our brand of cigarette, move to a new neighborhood, subscribe to a different newspaper, fall in and out of love, we are protesting in ways both frivolous and deep against the not to be diluted dullness of day-to-day living. Unfortunately, one mirror is as treacherous as another, reflecting at some point in every adventure the same vain unsatisfied face, and so when she asks what have I done? she means really what am I doing? as one usually does."

"What a sparkling, sun-slapped day for Grady McNeil..."

without a doubt, this is the most beautiful thing found in a trash can. expressed in a highly lyrical prose, Capote's writing style deserves a chef's kiss!

3,5/4

Capote cristaliza-se definitivamente como o escritor do meu coração. Esta é uma obra que poderá ser considerada incompleta, mais experimental, um protótipo do que seria a sua escrita, o seu estilo. Nunca se quis publicada pelo próprio autor mas após a sua morte, veio à luz do dia. É brilhante porque a inocência está mais que viva. A juventude, as cenas imersas de alma e nostalgia. O devaneio, a solidão, o amor de um verão. A naturalidade arrepiante dos diálogos que nos aproximam, como nunca julguei ser possível, da obra, e toda a separação quebra-se entre aqui e ali, entre a autenticidade vivida e a narração. Os cortes de reflexão brilhantes e as inúmeras e pequenas subtilezas fazem desta pequena obra uma espécie de quadro ou fractal de uma emoção, de uma personagem que poderia ser, julgo eu, a menina de todos nós - sonhadores.

This first effort by a 19-year-old Capote is admirable; he reaches to address class distinction and sexual issues thereof. The first half is flat and flawed: rich girl Grady plays with her boy-toy Clyde. But Capote pulls the rug out from under us when he suddenly switches to Clyde's POV half-way through. Clyde is a war veteran, his family has suffered true heartaches. Things get messy, to say the least. Capote improves his writing skills with "Other Voices, Other Rooms", written and published several years later. Then, he transitions slowly with "The Grass Harp" to such very good works as "Breakfast at Tiffany's" And finally, 20 years after this rocky first start, he writes his masterpiece, "In Cold Blood". His 20 years of hard work, writing amid a battle waged against him personally and professionally, is simply a triumph.

Exactly how much trouble can a filthy rich, spoiled Manhattan teenage girl get into when her parents leave via ocean liner for summer in Europe?

Our young lady with impeccable WASP credentials hooks up with a Jewish parking lot attendant from Brooklyn. Chaos ensues.

This sounds like a grade-B movie from the 1950s but the clash of class, the violence, alcohol and drugs are modern and it reads like 2020.

This was the first novel Capote worked on, starting in 1943, but he never felt it was finished and never published it. It was published posthumously, and probably incomplete, in 2005. Almost a novella (135 pp.).

[Edited 6/6/23]

This is a quick and lovely read about a young rebellious woman who wants to spend the summer in New York with the man she loves.
Throughout the novel she has to face the challenges of their age, social and other differences.
Additionally to the wonderful presentation of the characters and their situation Capote also paints a very realistic and beautiful picture of New York in the summer.
I can recommend this to anyone who likes Capote's writing or who is interested to give him a try.

Cortísimo pero de una intensidad brutal. Me ha gustado mucho pese a que ha habido momentos que me parecieron duros.

I'm a huge fan of Truman Capote but have put off reading his posthumously published novels for years because they aren't nearly as well reviewed as the stuff that came out during his lifetime. I've finally gotten around to reading Summer Crossing, however, and while I can't say that I'm disappointed (nothing Capote writes is ever disappointing), I do agree that it's not his most polished work. It's mildly entertaining and there are some funny bits, but it's definitely no Breakfast at Tiffany's. It also has the most shockingly abrupt ending of all time. But still, it's Capote and if you're a big fan, it's certainly worth a read. If you're new to Capote, it's still worth a read but go read Other Voices, Other Rooms and Breakfast at Tiffany's first – they're far superior.

It is hard to be too critical of a book that was not intended by its author to be published and therefore was not edited for publication.

It is a nicely written novella about a memorable summer in the life of a naive and foolish girl. Worth a read if you like Capote and post-WW2 New York stories.

I can easily say this is definitely the best book I've ever read that was rescued from a trash can (Confederacy of Dunces was under his bed, right?). This was a novel Truman abandoned in 1943 to write his debut Other Voices, Other Rooms. After his success with In Cold Blood he moved out of his Brooklyn apartment for Manhattan instructing the remaining contents of his apartment be put out on the curb for collection. The Super salvaged a box full of papers that included this manuscript. Nobody knew about this until it came up for auction in 2004 and was subsequently published. It's a quick six chapters about a small but intense cast of mentally unstable characters set during a New York summer ("as the heat closed in like a hand over a murder victim's mouth, the city thrashed and twisted but, with its outcry muffled, it...sank into a coma"). I think this qualifies as a genre that I'm slowly becoming aware I've constructed for myself and deeply enjoy (Franny & Zooey, Leon The Professional, etc.). If you already love Truman Capote you've probably already read this and so forget it...

I immediately had a sense of recognition while reading these two passages:

"What infinite energies are wasted steeling oneself against crisis that seldom comes: the strength to move mountains; and yet it is perhaps this very waste, this torturous wait for things that never happen, which prepares the way and allows one to accept with sinister sincerity the beast at last in view..."

"Most of life is so dull it is not worth discussing, and it is dull at all ages. When we change our brand of cigarette, move to a new neighborhood, subscribe to a different newspaper, fall in and out of love, we are protesting in ways both frivolous and deep against the not to be diluted dullness of day-to-day living. Unfortunately, one mirror is as treacherous as another, reflecting at some point in every adventure the same vain unsatisfied face, and so when she asks what have I done? she means really what am I doing? as one usually does."

i literally forgot that i had read this book.