Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintences and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career

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Summary: A book even Capote would love
Review: Being a man as into self advertisement as Truman Capote was, this is a book that he would truely love. Even though not everything said about him is positive, the very fact that so many prominant people had opinions about and feelings for this strange Southern refugee would probably warm his heart. I have tried without success to appreciate Capote as a writer. With the exception of In Cold Blood, which is less personal and more accessable than his other fiction, I just don't get it. But Capote the personality, now that is different. Those of us who watched his decline over the years on one TV show after another, to the point where his interviews were incoherent babble, have a guilty fascination with this man. And of course the 'mystery' of the missing final project - the greatest fiction of his life - just adds to the sadness of the story.

If you are interested in Capote at all - as writer or as personality - this book is a great source of insight, anecdote and interesting detail.

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Summary: A Must-Read For Any Southern Lit Lover!
Review: Plimpton's style for this book makes it a quick pageturner that I couldn't put down. It is a total reflection of Capote's own character, very open and even gossipy. Tons of facts (or opionions) that I had never known before. A "tru" inside look at who Truman really was, and this book was the later inspiration for what was to become my own email address. I wish there had been more info on Denham Fouts, an interesting character with influence in the lives of many writers of this time, including Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, and Capote. If you loved A Christmas Memory or In Cold Blood, then read this book just to find out those behind the scene details. Totally amazing!!

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Summary: Capote the Writer was Lost in Ten Years - Sad Tale
Review: The most moving aspect of this collection of oral recollections is how it highlights that Capote as a promising fiction writer existed only for ten years: 1948 to 1958. Between that time came his best (and pretty much ALL) of his fiction: his wonderful, lyrical novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms; his first short story collection; and, in 1958, Breakfast at Tiffany's. After 1958 the slide began. The oral stories in this book movingly underline the point that despite the huge success of In Cold Blood, that book was mere journalism (friends who cared about him as a writer noticed), and that Capote never got back to the promising fiction of his first decade.

After In Cold Blood which there was nothing but the parties - the now faded and tawdry-looking ball ball Capote threw at the Plaza Hotel (check out the telling photos Plimpton includes); a friend who attended cried in disbelief "This is supposed to be a great writer we're talking about." The period of playing mascot to wealthy cafe society is also included in all its irrelevant detail, as are the final, dismal years when Truman found it easier to go on Johnny Carson to "do" his "Truman Capote" routine rather than write. The decline in his personality is painful to read about and his constant lying and slandering of friends and other writers (a bizarre attack and libel on Gore Vidal, for example), makes him look an unpleasant irrelevance. His final brain-addled message to his lawyer ("I WANT to die!") and his tawdry death in the house of an ex-wife of Johnny Carson, add an odd, ironical pathos. Capote was a figure of fun in later life but this book, for all its cheapness and relying on (mostly) shallow "friends" for insight is a sad and moving testimony to a potentially great literary writer who never fulfilled the promise of his amazing first decade. I found it unexpectedly moving.

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Summary: what a great read!
Review: this book is an interesting form of biography with all the little snippets from a myriad of folks who knew truman capote. it's fun to compare the stories as all these people remember them just a little bit differently. it's gossip-y, sure, but it's also fun (and a little bit sad). i never really knew a lot about capote--except from "Murder by Death" and reading in cold blood-- and although i cant say this book makes me want to read much more of his material, it did give me an interesting insight into who he was, or, at least, how others saw him.

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Summary: "I'm beside myself!"--Gossipy and fun, yet oddly touching
Review: Though admitting it makes me seem like a walking example of "what's wrong with readers today," I have read more books *about* Truman Capote than I have read *by* Truman Capote. Not being a fan of "traditional" biographies, I was really looking forward to reading Plimpton's oral biography on this "tiny terror," and I was not disappointed. The book takes you through Capote's life, from his boyhood in Alabama (unlike some of my fellow Alabamians, I am more than happy to claim him as a product of the South) to his sad final hours in California. Say what you will about Capote, but the man "gave good quote," and his friends and enemies interviewed here seem to remember every one of them (and so will you). Whether you're interested in Capote (the writer), Capote (the jet-set sycophant), or Capote (the man who knew how to live life more fully than it was probably meant to be lived), you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

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Summary: All the dirt that's fit to print.
Review: Truman Capote was a media whore - not unlike Orson Welles. His writing talent was prodigious, but nothing compared to his talent for self-promotion. He was a true master of the short form, producing a series of award winning short stories -"The Headless Hawk," "Miriam," "Children on Their Birthdays, "Shut a Final Door," the novels "Other Voices, Other Rooms" and "The Grass Harp," with all of his talents finally coalescing with the brilliant "Breakfast at Tiffany's." He wrote the film scripts of "Beat the Devil" and "The Innocents," and the musical "House of Flowers." He adapted his great short story "A Christmas Memory" for television and won an Emmy Award. 1966 brought his masterpiece - "In Cold Blood." His achievements were justly celebrated. Then came the famous Black and White Ball - and when the party was over, it was truly over. Want to know what happened? Read this wickedly funny book. It's an honest portrait of a shining literary star who simply burned himself out. My hat goes off to the late, great George Plimpton.