I really admire how well this author writes southern misfit characters. I enjoyed this collection, but it was not my favorite by this author.

I love In Cold Blood and Breakfast At Tiffany's as well as some of Capote's other short stories. This collection is definitely good. I didn't enjoy it as much as the others I mentioned, but this book still has its gems. The main story is a wonderful summer read. A lot of Capote's writing feels like it would be perfect for reading while enjoying a glass of lemonade. I very much liked the short story Miriam, which was a little creepy but also funny. All of the stories had a great vibe to them.

The Grass Harp: Truman Capote on the Sunny Side of the Street

"Gonna take a Sentimental Journey,
Gonna set my heart at ease.
Gonna make a Sentimental Journey,
to renew old memories...

Never thought my heart could be so yearny.
Why did I decide to roam?
Gotta take that Sentimental Journey,
Sentimental Journey home.
Sentimental Journey."

n  n

Random House, New York, New York

Scene One--The office of Bob Linscott,Editor for Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, among others Random House, New York, NY

Linscott: Truman, you're a wonderful writer...

Capote: Oh, that's so true. There's only one TC! (Truman takes a languorous puff from his cigarette and stares dreamily at the ceiling, then looks at Bob, giving him a sultry look.)

Linscott: Don't pull that pouty baby face look on me. It won't work.

Capote: Why, Bob, I don't know what you mean! (In a whining tone)

Linscott: Look. Bennett's getting nervous. It's been two years since Other Voices, Other Rooms came out. That jacket photo just about made us all laughing stocks.

Capote: Now, that was perfectly innocent, Bob. And, Foxy, you had final approval on that picture. Now, didn't you?

Linscott: You caught me at a weak moment.

Capote: (Waving his cigarette delicately) Well, there you have it, Bobby.

Linscott: We've kept you in front of the public, Truman. We published your short fiction in
A Tree of Night: And Other Stories. But you've been promising...

Capote: And it was a ROUSING success. You were at the reading down at the Poetry Center. I was practically BLASTED off that high stool Malcolm had me sit on by the applause. How many times have you heard Bravo and Encore shouted outside of an opera house? Hmmmm???

Linscott: And you hopped off that stool and were bowing and blowing kisses with both hands. Have you absolutely no shame, Truman?

Capote: What's that, Bob? Shame? (giggling)

Linscott: Truman, you SKIPPED off the damned stage like a school boy!

n  n

HUZZAH!
Capote: Well, Foxy, I FELT like a school boy. Why, I DID!

Linscott: And don't tell me you're still working on Summer Crossing.

Capote: But, Bob, I am. I really, really am. It's just that the progress is slow.

Linscott: Really, Truman. What do you not understand? A rich New York girl falls in love with a cab stand attendant?

Capote: Love comes in many places. Wherever you find it, is natural.

Linscott: I'm sure you would know, Truman. But it's THIN, Truman, THIN! Any author could write it. It doesn't have your unique artistic stamp.

Capote: Well, actually, Jack doesn't like it either.

n  n

Truman and Jack Dunphy, long time companions

Linscott: You're not helping that gad about with his novel are you, Truman?

Capote: NO! Bob! I wouldn't do that. Why would I lie? (eyes dart left and right)

Linscott: For any of the same reasons you always do, Truman. So what am I going to tell Bennett?

Capote: Alright. I tore it up. I didn't like it either.

Linscott: You tore it up! Truman!

Capote: Well you said you didn't like it. I tore it up. It's finished. Gone. Never to see the light of day. Happy? I'm working on something else. Something from back in Alabama. About growing up with Callie, Sook, and Annie.

Linscott: Is this true? I want to see the first two chapters.

Capote: Oh, Bob! You won't believe it. It's about the lovely years I spent with my cousins. I know how dark and gloomy Other Voices, Other Rooms was. But this is the HAPPY TC. It's very real to me, more real than anything I've ever written, probably ever will.

Linscott: That's what you've said about EVERYTHING you've ever written.

Capote: (sulking) I cry. I have no control over myself or what I'm doing. Memories are always breaking my heart, Bob. You know, it's not easy writing a beautiful book.

SCENE TWO--Truman on the terrace of the Fontana Vecchia in Taormina, on the phone. Linscott in his office at Random House, also on phone.

Linscott: Truman, Truman, Truman. This is absolutely wonderful. So, Dolly, that'd be Sook, right? She's got a patent medicine for Dropsy that Verena...

Capote: Ye-e-e-s, that would be Cousin Callie. She could be so mean--

Linscott: And Verena is going to steal Dolly's recipe to make the money off it--

Capote: (Yawning. Jack is rubbing his shoulders) That's right. Callie always was the richest, meanest woman in town.

Linscott: So, they run off from home and find a treehouse between two China Berry trees and live there, and Verena sends the law to bring them back, and there's this retired Judge--

Capote--Charlie Cool who falls in love with Dolly, and Catherine Creek, Dolly's helper, and Riley, an older boy I looked up to all living up in this tree. And Judge Cool stands between Verena, the law and the townspeople who are trying to get Dolly to go back home and live with Verena.

Linscott: My boy, my boy--This is simply marvelous stuff. How are you going to get them down out of the tree? ARE you going to get them out of the tree?

Capote: Bob, you'll just have to wait and see. I'm mailing out the last sections June 4.

Linscott: I hope you mean June 4, 1951, and not 52 or 53.

Capote: Really Bob. You need to loosen up a little. First you drink, then you have sex, and then you smoke. You should try it sometime.

Linscott: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wonderful stuff. Simply marvelous. Now this is the TC I know and love that we ALL know and love here at Random House.

Capote: Give my regards to Bennett, Foxy. (hanging up) A little lower Jack, honey.

SCENE THREE: Scenes of train travelling through the Italian countryside. A map flashes Florence, Rome, and finally Venice. Truman is on the phone looking out his hotel room overlooking the Canal.

CAPOTE: Uhm, Bob, Truman

Linscott: How could I ever mistake that voice, my boy.

Capote: Oh, Bob. I do hope you are pleased with the book.

Linscott: Uhm, how can I say this, Truman. I didn't like the ending. Nobody hear at Random House liked the ending.

n  n

And if Bennett Cerf isn't happy, ain't nobody happy at Random House

Capote: But, Bob, WHY? I just don't understand! (plaintively, turning into a pouty face)

Linscott: Well, Truman, the first half was absolutely divine! I was expecting a continuing miracle! I don't think we got that. Not at all.

Capote: But, but, but...

Linscott: Not, you understand, that it isn't a good as a story and as superb as a piece of righting. There's no specific criticism to be made; just that we all had a slight feeling of letdown, tapering off a little, with the ending coming to soon. It's so short, we don't think people will buy it as a novel.

Capote: I cannot endure it (stamping feet) that all of you think my book a failure. I am simply striken by such overpowering opinion!

Linscott: "We'll pray that the critics won't have the same feeling of vague letdown in the last half that effected us.

SCENE FOUR: Review pages swirl coming to rest on headlines as a back drop to Truman Capote sitting in a comfortable chair. Capote holds an Atlantic Magazine. Newspapers and magazines are scattered around his chair.

n  n

First Edition, The Grass Harp

NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE--

THE GRASS HARP SHOWS THE MATURING AND MELLOWING OF ONE OF AMERICA'S BEST YOUNG WRITERS

NEW YORK TIMES--

A VAST IMPROVEMENT OVER OTHER VOICES OTHER ROOMS

THE COMMONWEAL--

WITHIN THE SLIM COMPASS OF THIS WORK, TRUMAN CAPOTE HAS ACHIEVED A MASTERPIECE OF PASSIONATE SIMPLICITY

(Lights begin to fade)

Capote: (reading aloud) "The Atlantic Monthly commented that 'The Grass Harp charms you into sharing the author's feeling that there is a special poetry - a spontaneity and wonder and delight - in lives untarnished by conformity and common sense.'"

Capote: (reading reviews with satisfied smile) All books are far too long. MY theory is that a book should be like a seed you plant, and that the reader should make his own flower. Now, Bob, Honey--Bennett--What was it you were saying? Actually, I'm thinking about an extraordinary young woman that loves to shop at Tiffany's.

Stage lights fade to black.

FINIS

n  n

I had not read any Truman Capote because in the seventies, when I became aware of him he had already deteriorated into a Hollywood celebrity writer, which made me automatically assume that he wrote pabulum for the masses. Hence I took him as an author about as seriously as a writer for tabloids.

Such an arrogant thing to think, I know, but I'm being honest. So how did I come around to finally reading Capote, and furthermore, really liking and admiring his work?

It was through his good friend, Harper Lee. I was reading about her life and came to know that she and Capote grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. They were close childhood friends and, later as adults, encouraged and influenced each others' writing. Some have darkly whispered that Capote largely edited Lee's work, "To Kill a Mockingbird", which would explain why the original manuscript, "Go Tell a Watchman" that was published a couple of years ago is not of the same quality.

Others argue that Capote was way too narcissistic to keep that sort of thing a secret, especially since the book won the Pulitzer Prize.

What is easier to conclude is that Lee helped Capote write "Cold Blood", well, not the writing, which is all his own, but she did the ground work for him, meticulously researching the background of the murder, befriending and interviewing the families involved etc.. Capote gave her no credit for collecting all the information that he used to write. Not that he didn't do a lot himself, and ultimately wrote the book, but based on what I read, he couldn't have done it without Harper Lee.

So granted, Truman Capote was a self-centered little (he stood at 5 foot 3) donkey's behind. He was still a wonderful writer and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

First of all, I have lived several years in the South and I appreciate the local color that Capote so deftly writes into his stories. The culture, the dialect, it's all so rich. And his story lines are fun, yet also poignant.

This collection of short stories alternate between people living in small southern towns and people living in New York City. Even in New York, at least one of the characters is a Southern transplant, which allows the contrast between the two cultures to rub against each other and shine more clearly. Since I have also spent several years in the Northeast (I'm not real old, just middle-aged), I appreciate his stories in that environment as well.

Capote has a fun sense of humor which keeps the reader from taking some events too seriously, events that would otherwise perplex us.

Yet, there is also an overriding loneliness in his stories. His characters are often disenfranchised, isolated, and alone. Truman Capote lost his father when very young and abandoned by his mother to a couple of elderly aunts. One of the aunts must have been a little slow, because these two aunts, one domineering and the other autistic or mentally challenged, crop up in many of the stories in this collection.

These stories were written when Capote was a young man, and published in 1945. They offer a unique view of a time period, especially in the South, that preserves a culture, its beauty and its ugliness, for those of use who came after.

I look forward to reading more of his works and see how he matured as a writer.

Truman Capote is such a good writer you don't even care what he's talking about, you are simply mesmerized by his words. So when he chooses an interesting topic the result is a real treat, as happens with some of the stories in A Tree of Night.

| | | | | | | |

Truman Capote era tan buen escritor que no te importa siquiera de qué te está hablando, sencillamente estás hipnotizado por sus palabras. Así que cuando elige un tema interesante el resultado es una auténtica delicia, como pasa con algunos de los cuentos de A Tree of Night.

This is such a old copy - a penguin that originally cost 25p, has a lurid orange back cover and an uninspiring front cover design in black, white orange and green. I'd bought it second hand, and there was a piece of paper, credit card sized, blue with an arabic phrase written on it; used as a bookmark. I have no idea whatsoever as to what the arabic means.

This isn't a long read and I am surprised to see that I have had it sitting and waiting for almost two years! I really enjoyed this book. I've read a few of Capote's already: quite a few short stories, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Summer Crossing and In Cold Blood. It says on the back of this book "This one must be the funniest, happiest and most captivating of Truman Capote's novels". I'm not so sure about the captivating bit, but this is a really upbeat, eccentric story. I really enjoyed it.

It's set in a little town in southern small town America and focuses on one household of eccentrics: two ageing sisters, a black woman convinced she is a native American, and their orphaned nephew, 16 years old. One of the sisters is serious and a successful business woman; the other, Dolly, only likes to eat sweet things, is a bit dotty and makes potions in an old bathtub which she sells by mail order as a dropsy cure. After a fight over this business, the sisters fall out, and Dolly, the nephew Colin, and the black woman, Catherine, leave home and move into a treehouse in the woods. Which makes the rest of the town very angry, and they come marching over to sort them out...

Really enjoyed this book. And the characters are fantastic. And he has such a way of writing about them and their eccentricities without belittling them or turning them into silly characterteurs.

My 2009 bookcrossing journal.

I didn't read every story in this book but if you have the chance read The Grass Harp. It is poetry disguised as prose.
I read a book recently called The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman which I gave a 1 star review to. Reading The Grass Harp straight afterward clearly defined the difference in my mind between a good book and a bad one. In The Improbable Wonders, the author had a lot of crazy nonsense going on to make it a book of magic and delight. However, The Grass Harp was about people who in and of themselves were magic and delight; no added weirdness needed. Capote was able to observe and then relate the almost undefinable essence of life force and creativity within humans.

[3.5 Stars]

My Video Review:
https://youtu.be/6iqcD3oRT2I

Now this is what I’m talking about. I had wrongly assumed Music for Chameleons would be like this. This. First is the eponymous novella. For years, I’ve had a grass harp that stretches from my house to the creek and I didn’t know it until I read this. That’s what Capote does. A ridiculously talented writer, he could take anything and translate into precise, imaginative, often poetic language. Just the right words. I was absolutely mesmerized by this versatile collection.

From The Grass Harp:

“Charlie said that love is a chain of love. I hope you listened and understood him. Because when you can love one thing,” she held the blue egg as preciously as the Judge had held a leaf, “you can love another, and that is owning, that is something to live with. You can forgive everything.”

“I’ve read that past and future are a spiral, one coil containing the next and predicting its theme. Perhaps this is so; but my own life has seemed to me more a series of closed circles, rings that do not evolve with the freedom of a spiral: for me to get from one to the other has meant a leap, not a glide. What weakens me is the lull between, the wait before I know where to jump. After Dolly died I was a long while dangling.”

Reading In Cold Blood as a teenager had such a profound impact on me I was hoping that Truman Capote’s other works were as powerful. This was different. The short stories are what I would consider Southern Gothic but also bizarre, along the lines of Neil Gaiman or Edgar Alan Poe. I started and stopped The Grass Harp several times over the course of probably a dozen years and really had to push through to read all of the short stories in this collection. I’m curious if any of the female characters show up in the new Capote vs. The Swans show because they are certainly written to be despicable people.

I only read the first short story in this collection-

This was a truly interesting read and could not be more different from Breakfast at Tiffany’s aside from the fact that parts of it certainly did not age well. The narrator is a teenage boy and at times it really shows but that’s part of what made this so interesting. The storyline and context were wonderfully strange and I would recommend this to anyone looking for something quick yet engaging.

This story is one of my favorites by Capote. It's based on his upbringing in Alabama with two elderly cousins in Monroeville. Capote wrote some of the best sentences in the 20th Century.

I love this from the story: “If some wizard would like to give me a present, let him give me a bottle filled with the voices of that kitchen, the ha ha ha and the fire whispering, a bottle brimming with its buttery sugary smells . . .”