An excellent and most enjoyable read from George Plimpton.

I really liked the structure of the book. The individual interviewees have their say on Truman Capote. It makes for digestible reading in small sections.

The final part related by Joanne Carson who was with him at his death, is very moving. As she cradled him, he called for his “ mama” (I have heard it said many men do this at their final moments) who never really loved him in life and committed suicide.

Truman Capote was larger than life in so many ways; ironic considering his small stature and high voice. He had the strength to be the person he wanted to be: most importantly against all odds and at a time when to be gay was certainly frowned on and even dangerous. He became a towering giant of America literature emerging when many could scarcely read never mind write.

Partiamo dall’inizio

Truman Streckfus Persons nasce a New Orleans nel 1924.
I genitori divorziano quando lui ha quattro anni: la madre, molto bella e molto giovane, vince un concorso di bellezza, abbandona la famiglia e si trasferisce a New York. Il piccolo Truman cresce tra l’Alabama, la Louisiana e il Mississippi. A sei anni va a vivere a Monroville da alcuni parenti e stringe un legame importante con sua cugina Sook: è più grande di lui, ma è rimasta un po’ bambina a causa di una febbre tifoide che le ha procurato un certo ritardo mentale. Sook prepara a Truman delle focacce che insaporisce in segreto con un goccio di whisky, lo aiuta a ritagliare carta colorata per costruire gli aquiloni e lo veste da donna come se fosse la sua bambola.

Le focacce di Sook, il successo di Colazione da Tiffany e A sangue freddo, la brutta faccenda di Preghiere esaudite e il declino di uno scrittore americano tra i più eccentrici e talentuosi: tutto è compreso nel libro di George Plimpton, fondatore del The Paris Review, arricchito con testimonianze dirette di amici e parenti, e interventi dello stesso Capote. Consigliato!

Qui: un approfondimento su Truman Capote

exhaustive but interesting none the less

I read To Kill a Mockingbird and then read In Cold Blood and HAD to know more about Truman Capote. So..I borrowed this from my mother-in-law and read this on the plane from Mesa, AZ. Very good. It is written in bits and pieces from people in Truman's life. Funny, tawdry, catty, wonderful. Please, don't read this if you like him and want to keep liking him.

Fascinating look at Capote. The oral history format works extremely well because of the disparate views, feelings, and experiences each interviewee had about and with Capote, not to mention the many and varied lies he told throughout his life.

By far one of the best of Plimpton's compilations (even better than his Edie Sedgwick book) that gives a fabulous, truthful, fantastic, honest, painful portrait of Capote.

I love this book, and I love George Plimpton! With this book, Plimpton comes out with a new form of biography. He tells the story of Truman Capote's life, by ingeniously editing the words of "various friends, enemies, acquaintances and detractors" together to create a seamless narrative. We get to know Truman Capote through the people in his life... and what a life it was. Really poignant and also fun. Highly recommended for anyone who likes biographies, Truman Capote fan's, and those who are interested in a writer's life or New York Society. Also recommended for anyone who loves a good story.

A Plimpton pleasure. Thorough with a hint of malice which Capote may not have appreciated, but would certainly have understood. For a Capote nut, this book is a jewel. And an homage to his own brand of writing- combining truth with, well, something else.

It was sometimes hard to tell the friends from the enemies in this collection of memories from people who knew Capote. Many of the so-called memories were about plumping up the ego of the speaker, rather than paying tribute to Tru, but given the crowd that he ran with, that kind of self-aggrandizing conduct is to be expected. There were some contradictions in the stories, but the themes that came through were that Truman was a fun person, devoted to his writing and his friends in about equal portions. His social life stands as its own separate work of art - from the legendary Black and White ball, to the public feuds, to the cross over of friendships into his writing with Answered Prayers, his personal relationships form a significant part of his legend. A couple people made the observation that Truman did not have an educated writer's mind - he read voraciously, but didn't have the formal training that university provides. This lack of historical or cultural context was provided as a reason for why he was not able to complete Answered Prayers as a Proustian epic of American life, as he planned. Might it also be a reason for how he lost his way? He was a talented writer, but somehow untethered to his world - he floated and danced above it all, until his heart grew too heavy to be buoyed up. A writer with the power to fascinate, almost 40 years after his very sad, untimely death.

As in Plimpton’s biography of Edie Sedgwick, Edie: American Girl, he weaves together the opinions, the diary entries, the essays, and reflections of those who knew Truman Capote. An interesting concept, because some writers contradict others concerning the same topic, and the reader must discern who is right, or else abandon such an idea and just enjoy the nature of this biography. At times Capote's story is gossipy, at other times, heart-wrenching as his friends share their witnessing of his slow demise due to alcoholism and drug addiction, the utter waste that seems to occur after his huge success with In Cold Blood.

Gossipy goodness! A fun book to read!

If you haven't seen the movie INFAMOUS, with Toby Stephens and Sandra Bullock, you should watch it right away. It was based on this book, and it's amazing! This is the best biography of a great American writer that I have ever read. The reason is that it's more of an oral history, (my favorite kind of book) or a collection of interviews, in the tradition of THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES by Lawrence Ritter or BLOODS by Wallace Terry. There's something funny or touching or memorable on almost every single page. My favorite section was an interview with Truman Capote where he explains in very precise detail how he writes each draft and edits them before publication. There were also some great stories about his childhood in Alabama, and interviewing the real life killers who inspired IN COLD BLOOD. The chapters on high society weren't that interesting, but even at the very end there were some great passages, like the eulogy by the poet James Dickey.

This is an amazing book!