Other Voices, Other Rooms

Rating:
Summary: It's Southern Literature
Review: I read this book to find our how its dead mule, John Henry, came to hang himself off the balcony with a spittoon tied to his leg. This is Capote's first published work and I can't believe it's never been made into a movie. The boy Joel seems so real and having finished the book, I so want to know what became of him. Did he grow up to be that strange, funny little man I used to see on Merv Griffin's talk show?

Rating:
Summary: It's Southern Literature
Review: I read this book to find our how its dead mule, John Henry, came to hang himself off the balcony with a spittoon tied to his leg. This is Capote's first published work and I can't believe it's never been made into a movie. The boy Joel seems so real and having finished the book, I so want to know what became of him. Did he grow up to be that strange, funny little man I used to see on Merv Griffin's talk show?

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent book! Truman Capote is a genius
Review: I'm almost finished reading Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Room, and I must say that this is the best book I have read in a long time. This is the first Truman Capote novel I've read and boy!! IT IS EXVELLENT. It is the story of a young boy's search for his father. It is a sad story, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. TRUMAN CAPOTE IS A GENIUS!!!

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent book! Truman Capote is a genius
Review: I'm almost finished reading Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Room, and I must say that this is the best book I have read in a long time. This is the first Truman Capote novel I've read and boy!! IT IS EXVELLENT. It is the story of a young boy's search for his father. It is a sad story, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. TRUMAN CAPOTE IS A GENIUS!!!

Rating:
Summary: Please, stop reviewing books just to see your name online!
Review: If you randomly selected a pretentious literary critic with a lot of time on his hands and pages from obscure novels that people only read to say that they've read them, added a computer with internet access and an extensive thesaurus, Daniel Myers is the sort of thing you would conjure up! I know you are motivated only by enlightening your fellow readers and not by the type of vanity and narcissim that would compel one to constantly type just to see their own words in print...

Rating:
Summary: Southern Gothic 101
Review: If you randomly selected pages from Poe's short stories and those from Faulker's novels and threw them into the cauldron over which the witches of Macbeth preside and had them cast a spell over them, this book is the sort of thing you would conjure up.-One is hardly suprised, by the way, that the witch scene is partially recited herein.-The book is curiously reminiscent of Rimbaud's famous credo about the poet making himself a seer by a derangnement of the senses, a credo by which Capote, and Faulkner and Poe and many other great artists, lived their tragic lives. - The imagery is as beautiful and lush as the setting in the deep South. But it is an imagery of the heart as well as the place. I DO wish the young Capote had threshed out this book into the Bildungsroman it was so clearly intended to be. But, for whatever reason, he stops short, leaving the reader with a deep impression of his vivid imagery and lyricism. But, when it comes down to it, not much else. Still for a 17 year old, this is quite a feat.-One need only compare how Capote handles the character of Idabel who was based on the same girl on whom Harper Lee based her character Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird (They grew up in the same town.) to see how much purer and deeper a seer and artist Capote is than Ms. Lee could ever hope to be.-So, to sum things up, an exquisite read, but one wishes that Capote's Joel could have developed and discovered more about himself and the world at the point where the book, rather coyly, ends.

Rating:
Summary: A Sinister Southern Gothic Treat
Review: In OTHER VOICE OTHER ROOMS 13 year-old Joel moves into a decaying backwoods southern mansion to reunite with his father...and finds only mystery. This psychological/gothic tale makes for a supremely atmospheric and compelling read. Reality is consistently filtered through veils of memory, family and personal history, sexual secrecy, legend, lore and more. The result is a reality that is fleeting and no more tangible than moonlight. OTHER VOICES OTHER ROOMS is also a great example of Capote's love of a tale within a tale and emphasizes his southern storyteller genius. A huge gay "subtext"! Creepy scenes, surreal characters, ghoulish ambience. Riveting. A perfect late night read.

Rating:
Summary: The road to happiness isn't always a highway
Review: Joel travels to a tiny town in Louisiana to meet the father he's never seen. It's a languid, very Southern story of a lonely young boy figuring out his place in the world, and the book is considered one of the classic gay novels. Capote's style here in his first book is a bit awkward in places, but the story is compelling. I think Donald Rawley's "The Night Bird Cantata" will appeal to those who love this, too.

Rating:
Summary: A haunting, sideways look at the world the reveals the truth
Review: Leaving me in silence, it froze the marrow of my bones--the words softly painting a crystal picture of horror and truth...and beauty and valor. Holding me in its grasp, not letting go until the last words were spoken, and then asking me to read it again, the character's voices calling in my head like ghosts from a grave--a grave Capote himself dug

Rating:
Summary: An unsettling story of coming of age in the rural South.
Review: Never having read a Capote novel or short story before this novel was probably the best way to go. The premise was simple enough: a boy whose beloved mother has died, sets out to live with his estranged father in a rural southern town. The story, however, is not that...ordinary. The mysterious father does not immediately appear, and the young boy is left virtually alone with a mentally imbalanced extended family headed by an aging artist. Capote introduces a Carson McCullers-esque tomboy, a witch doctor, a circus sideshow, and you begin to understand that this novel is about many stories--not just Joel's story. Capote never lets you imagine for a moment that his novel will turn into one of those "feel good" coming of age stories in which, despite setbacks and loopy family arrangements, the young hero or heroine finally "makes it." Our hero moves on in the best way that he can, which is all anybody really can do. I appreciate Capote's sense of reality.