Truman Capote A Memoir

The portrait of Truman Capote in John Malcolm Brinnin’s Sextet , published in 1981, was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “masterly…it reads like a novella.” Now two years after Capote’s death, Brinnin has greatly expanded upon that original reminiscence to take the reader past the time of Capote’s Completion of In Cold Blood to his death in 1984. This is a book that must be read by anyone seriously interested in one of our finest modern writers.As the author points out in his Foreword, more objective accounts of Truman Capote’s life will be published, but no one will tell the story more personally or affectionately. We travel the full arc of Capote’s adult life, starting in the late 1940s when the enfant terrible of the literary world was just beginning to make waves. Mr. Brinnin, one of Capote’s dearest friends, captures the soul of the man and the writer. But he does not flinch from describing that unfortunate shift in persona from a prodigy to the mascot of café society. After Capote’s hard, glittering success with In Cold Blood , Mr. Brinnin “began to surrender to an image [of Capote] that floated like a Macy’s balloon on Thanksgiving Day, over the watching multitude and to lose sight of the man I knew.”This is not, however, merely a chronicle of wasted talent. We hear fascinating discussions with Capote and other literary people about his “nonfiction novel” techniques, talks between the author and Tennessee Williams about why Williams and Capote had been “doing the dirty dozens” on each other all their lives, and finally, discussions with Capote about his long-awaited, never-realized Answered Prayers .Upon publication of Sextent , Seymour Krim in The Washington Post Book World “Brinnin is a true grandson of Henry James and Marcel Proust, and in keeping with our documentary age, takes that drawing-room awareness into the close quarters of steamy reality.” Readers of this touching memoir will be glad that Capote had such a perceptive and devoted friend.Jacket design by Barbara Iris UlanPhoto of Truman Capote and author’s photo copyright by Rollie McKenna