Capote: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: The best book yet about Capote
Review: By far, the best Capote biography to date. Clarke has a talent for giving us the facts, presented in such a way as to be entertaining and enlightening. He obviously knows his subject well and shows us this without pretension or the usual prestidigitation that so often accompanies biographies such as this. What strikes one first and foremost is the wonderful arc the book has. It is true that Capote's life had this arc already, but to be able to translate that from life to a book is not as easy as one would imagine.

Given the incredibly spotlight life that Capote led, much of the information in this book is axiomatic: the incidents of early life in New Orleans and Alabama, his mother's bi-polar if not manic travails, the uprooting at an early age to live in Greenwich, Connecticut, the infamous New Yorker job he held but for a short while; his elbow-rubbing with the jet set, ultimately culminating in Answered Prayers; the resulting fall from grace; the drugs, the alcohol. But it is the nuances, the small findings in this book, that make it unique and give it an edge over others. Clarke relates at one point how ill read Capote was, standing up in the middle of a film of a Dickens novel, shouting, "They've stolen my plot." Or his sad and telling description of Capote's last days at the home of Joanne Carson. His last words? "I'm cold." And he was gone.

This compelling biography is full of photographs that speak volumes as well: Capote as a child--innocent, a tabla rasa; Capote on the set of a movie; Capote vacationing. And a desperate-looking Capote clinging a little to hard to Marilyn Monroe. Wonderful and telling pictures that are enhanced by Gerald Clarke's troubling, wonderful, and ultimately entertaining look at Capote, the writer, and Capote the man. All-in-all a great read about one of America's greatest writers.

Rating:
Summary: A Lovely Bio of an artist
Review: I ran across this book and hadn't thought about Capote in years and got it on impulse. It is just a wonderful bio and captures what Capote was and why he attracted such attention. It is hard to imagine what a youngster he was when he came on the scene and how he was so very loved. The book is full of lovely stories and famous people. The chapters on the "swans" was my favorite but his relationships, the accounts of his writing, his amazing ambition and ability to have devoted friends and ultimately his terrible end are written like a novel. Capote was generous, brilliant, kind, warm, seductive,vicious at times and utterly captivating. I now want to reread his books. But the accounts of his travels abroad, his long stays at wonderful quaint places and the "moveable feast" of his early life made me long to have been there. I loved this bio.

Rating:
Summary: Wildly fascinating, equally tragic.
Review: Wow, what a story! Reads more like a spectacular novel than biography...
An absolutely fantastic insight into elite society's beloved (and soon after, elite society's abhorred) and eccentric Puck who enrapts everyone in his midst with wild tales, crazy antics, and just the peculiarities of his odd character. For many years, Truman enjoyed the intimacy of friendship, and, supposedly confidence, with (the wives of) presidents, kings, business moguls and Hollywood's nobility of which Clark has researched and presented with wonderful insights from Truman's closest friends, great nay-sayers and, at times, even enemies. The biography sexually links Capote with such notable artists as Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal--and perhaps Albert Camus--to Errol Flynn, and Marlon Brando! Naturally, one knows of the homosexuality present in the artistic community, but to see it on paper, seems almost lascivious if not for Capote's frailties. Not only Capote's writings, but his grand orchestrations of spectacular peoples' lives, garnered glamorous attention in the US as well as around the globe, but unfortunately, he never escapes his desperate need of love and attention formed through an abusive childhood and eventually it becomes his undoing.