Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote by Truman Capote (English) Paper

Description: Too Brief a Treat by Truman Capote, Gerald Clarke Truman Capote was hailed as one the most meticulous writers in American letters-a part of the Capote mystique is that his precise writing seemed to exist apart from his chaotic life. While the measure of Capote as a writer is best taken through his work, Capote the person is best understood in his personal correspondence with friends, colleagues, lovers, and rivals.In "Too Brief a Treat, the acclaimed biographer Gerald Clarke brings together for the first time the private letters of Truman Capote. Encompassing more than four decades, these letters reveal the inner life of one of the twentieth century's most intriguing personalities. As Clarke notes in his Introduction, Capote was an inveterate letter writer who both loved and craved love without inhibition. He wrote letters as he spoke: emphatically, spontaneously, and without reservation. He also wrote them at a breakneck pace, unconcerned with posterity. Thus, in this volume we have perhaps the closest thing possible to an elusive treasure: a Capote autobiography.Through his letters to the likes of William Styron, Gloria Vanderbilt, his publishers and editors, his longtime companion and lover Jack Dunphy, and others, we see Capote in all his life's phases-the uncannily self-possessed na-f who jumped headlong into the dynamic post—World War Two New York literary scene and the more mature, established Capote of the 1950s. Then there is the Capote of the early 1960s, immersed in the research and writing of his masterpiece, "In Cold Blood. Capote's correspondence with Kansas detective Alvin Dewey, and with Perry Smith, one of the killers profiled in that work, demonstrates Capote's intense devotion to his craft, while hisletters to friends like Cecil Beaton show Capote giddy with his emergence as a flamboyant mass media celebrity after that book's publication. Finally, we see Capote later in his life, as things seemed to be unraveling: when he is disillusioned, isolated by his substance abuse and by personal rivalries. (Ever effusive with praise and affection, Capote could nevertheless carry a grudge like few others)."Too Brief a Treat is that uncommon book that gives us a literary titan's unvarnished thoughts. It is both Gerald Clarke's labor of love and a surpassing work of literary history."From the Hardcover edition. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description The private letters of Truman Capote, lovingly assembled here for the first time by acclaimed Capote biographer Gerald Clarke, provide an intimate, unvarnished portrait of one of the twentieth centurys most colorful and fascinating literary figures.Capote was an inveterate letter writer. He wrote letters as he spoke- emphatically, spontaneously, and passionately. Spanning more than four decades, his letters are the closest thing we have to a Capote autobiography, showing us the uncannily self-possessed naif who jumped headlong into the post-World War II New York literary scene; the more mature Capote of the 1950s; the Capote of the early 1960s, immersed in the research and writing of In Cold Blood; and Capote later in life, as things seem to be unraveling. With cameos by a veritable whos who of twentieth-century glitterati, Too Brief a Treat shines a spotlight on the life and times of an incomparable American writer. Author Biography Truman Capote was born September 30, 1924, in New Orleans. After his parents divorce, he was sent to live with relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. It was here he would meet his lifelong friend, the author Harper Lee. Capote rose to international prominence in 1948 with the publication of his debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Among his celebrated works are Breakfast at Tiffanys, A Tree of Night, The Grass Harp, Summer Crossing, A Christmas Memory, and In Cold Blood, widely considered one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. Twice awarded the O. Henry Short Story Prize, Capote was also the recipient of a National Institute of Arts and Letters Creative Writing Award and an Edgar Award. He died August 25, 1984, shortly before his sixtieth birthday.Gerald Clarke is the author of Capote- A Biography and Get Happy- The Life of Judy Garland. He has also written for many publications, including Architectural Digest, Time, where he was a senior writer, and Esquire. A graduate of Yale, he now lives in Bridgehampton, New York. Review "Dead funny and crackling with gossip." —Vanity Fair"Here we see Capote at his witchy, bitchy best, leaving us longing for more." —The Washington Post World"Chatty, funny, affectionate and wildly interested in the big world—the bigger the better—Capote the correspondent is irresistible." —Newsday Excerpt from Book Chapter 1 Truman Capote began life under a cloud. By the time he was born, in New Orleans on September 30, 1924, his parents marriage was over in all but name. His mother, Lillie Mae, a small-town beauty, went her way, and his father, Arch Persons, a charming but irresponsible schemer, went his. For much of his childhood, Truman was thus raised by the same middle-aged cousins who had raised his orphaned mother: three old maid cousins and their bachelor brother in the little town of Monroeville, Alabama. Though he never lacked for care, that early abandonment by his parents left an emotional wound that remained open until the day he died. Small-"Im about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy," was how he later described himself-Truman was spirited and inventive enough to make himself the center of any gathering. "A pocket Merlin" was how Harper Lee, his best friend during those early years, later described him in her semiautobiographical novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1932 his mother, who had dropped her back-country name, Lillie Mae, in favor of the more sophisticated Nina, brought him north to live with her and her new husband, a Cuban named Joe Capote, in New York. An indulgent stepfather with a good job on Wall Street, Joe Capote legally adopted him in 1935, and Truman Persons became Truman Capote. In 1939 the Capotes left Manhattan for the upscale bedroom community of Greenwich, Connecticut. There they settled into a handsome enclave of Tudor houses and tree-shaded streets. When he was still in Alabama, Capote had announced his ambition to become a writer, and at Greenwich High School, he found what every aspiring writer needs, a sympathetic and encouraging teacher-Catherine Wood was her name. In Greenwich, Truman also found a soul mate in Phoebe Pierce, a pretty, sophisticated girl whose own ambition was to be a poet. Although there is only one letter to her-"Phoebe devil" was how he affectionately addressed her-her name often comes up in his correspondence with others. Three years after leaving, the Capotes returned to New York, to an apartment at 1060 Park Avenue. After belatedly graduating from high school, a private school on Manhattans West Side, Capote landed a job at The New Yorker [magazine]-but only as a copyboy. That magazine thought his stories too unconventional for its staid, Scarsdale tastes. In those days the womens fashion magazines published the most innovative fiction in America, and the talent The New Yorker sneered at was quickly embraced by two remarkable fiction editors, Mary Louise Aswell at Harpers Bazaar and George Davis at Mademoiselle. They vied for his stories, and in the months after World War II, Capote, still in his early twenties, became a hot commodity in the literary marketplace. All was not going well at home, however. Nina Capote had become an alcoholic, and when she was not raging at Joe for his infidelities, she was attacking Truman for his homosexuality. Finding it harder and harder to work on Park Avenue, in 1946 Truman sought temporary refuge at Yaddo, a writers and artists colony on a bucolic estate in upstate New York. One writer who was there that summer compared him to Shakespeares Ariel; but he was also Puck, the one who set the agenda for fun and adventure. Yaddo was famous for its romances, and Capote engaged in two, the first with Howard Doughty, a handsome married historian, the second with Newton Arvin, one of Doughtys best friends and sometime lover. For Truman, Doughty, who remained a friend, was just a fling. But Arvin, a professor of literature at Smith, a womens college in Northampton, Massachusetts, was real love. They were an unlikely couple. At twenty-two, Capote looked several years younger; at forty-six, Arvin looked several years older, in appearance a mousy man, bald and bespectacled. In temperament they were also opposites. Capote could scarcely restrain his high spirits; shy and reserved, Arvin felt uncomfortable whenever he left his Northampton sanctuary. Arvin was brave in his writing, however, and unlike many professors of literature, he was an excellent writer himself, a critic of unassailable judgment and a tower of erudition. In the two years they were a pair-Capote traveled to Northampton on weekends-Arvin provided his young partner with the college education he had never had. Arvin, Capote liked to say, was his Harvard. During the week Capote enjoyed New York, where the circles of his friends widened with every month. One set centered on Leo Lerman, a good-natured literary gadfly whose Sunday-night parties were a Manhattan institution, attracting just about everybody of note-writers and editors, movie stars and playwrights. Other sets revolved around his magazine editors, Harpers Bazaars much-loved Mary Louise Aswell and Mademoiselles slightly sinister George Davis, whose epigrams rivaled Oscar Wildes. After publication of his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Capote asked Davis his opinion. "Well," said Davis, "I suppose someone had to write the fairy Huckleberry Finn." Capote discovered the world of a more established society when he walked into the East Side town house of Bennett Cerf, his new publisher at Random House, and Cerfs wife, Phyllis. There, too, he became the center of the room, telling tales and retailing gossip. Others among the dramatis personae of those postwar years-and Capotes frequent correspondents-were Donald Windham and Andrew Lyndon, two aspiring writers from Georgia, and John Malcolm Brinnin, a poet, college teacher, and, later, the head of the Poetry Center at the 92nd Street YMHA in Manhattan. The publication of Other Voices, Other Rooms in the winter of 1948 brought Capote national fame-Americans of that day took literature more seriously than they do now-and a few months later he traveled to Europe, where, to no ones surprise, he met some of the leading English and French writers. When he returned, he realized that he had outgrown Arvin and his almost hermit-like isolation. For his part, Arvin, who had engaged in a clandestine romance with Andrew Lyndon while Capote was away, was only too willing to release his rambunctious and often tiring lover. Though they remained devoted friends until Arvins death in 1963, Capote began looking around for a new companion. In October 1948, he found him. Ten years Capotes senior, Jack Dunphy was athletic-he had been a dancer in the original production of Oklahoma!-and good-looking, in a surly kind of way. He said what he thought, to Capote and everybody else. Dunphy, too, was a writer-and a good one-with one novel to his credit, another on the way, and several plays in his future. This time love lasted, and Dunphy remained Capotes constant star for the rest of his life. TO ARCH PERSONS [St. Johns Military Academy] [Ossining, N.Y.] [Probably Autumn 1936] As you know my name was changed from Persons [sic] to Capote, and I would appreciate it if in the future you would address me as Truman Capote, as everyone knows me by that name. [Collection Gerald Clarke] TO THOMAS FLANAGAN [Greenwich, Connecticut] [1939-41] I do hereby solemnly affirm that any statements I may have made about Thomas Flanagan, or said that he had made, were calumnies and lies on my part. Truman Capote [Collection Edmond Miller] TO CATHERINE WOOD [Monroeville, Ala.] [26 July 1941] Dear Miss Wood, I have been in New Orleans three weeks and I just got back to Monroeville last night. I was very pleasantly surprised to find your sweet note. I was so sorry to hear about your father and I do hope he is improving. I have been gathering material here and there and some of it is rather good, I have written little but I have taken many notes and tried to give accurate accounts of things that will later stand me in good stead, (that was meant to be a period, but my typewriter slipped.) Are you going up to visit Miss Pierce, I hope you do because her place in Maine sounded so quiet and restful-charmingly woodsy. I have been traveling all over the south since I came. I went to Natchez, Miss. last week and I went on a picnic at a very scenic spot over looking [sic] the Mississippi River. Teddys mother wrote me a long letter telling me all about his doings, you know Teddy-he wouldnt [sic] write anyone if his very life depended upon it. She told me that you had written him and asked me to tell you all the news about the dear raven haired child. 1.He has a job with the Greenich [sic] Cab company and he makes fifteen dollars week. 2.He won $130.00 dollars [sic] at the Maidstone club dinner dance. He is taking flying lessons with it. 3.His mother is desperate! 4.They have moved into their new house-the address is 179 Park Ave. Greenwich. 5.They are pleased and delighted with Teddy and he seems to be improving. BUNK! P.S. He was 17 last Sat. I have gone Russian with a vengeance! I finally finished WAR and Peace. Also I have read Huxleys "Point Counter Point." It is very badly written, not so badly written as confusing. But it is educating as to the point of ultra-modern sophistication. I went all the way through the heart of Pearl River swamp in La. It took three days and it was like being in a jungle only more dangerous. These swamps are inhabited by Cajons (I believe that I spelled that correctly) and it is so wild in there that some of the younger children have never seen white people! It was really quite an experience and I collected all kinds of material and wild flowers-also a baby alligator which I will ship to you C.O.D any time that you will hav Details ISBN0375702415 Author Gerald Clarke Edition Description Vintage Intl Language English ISBN-10 0375702415 ISBN-13 9780375702419 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 813.54 Year 2005 Short Title TOO BRIEF A TREAT Residence New Orleans, LA, US Birth 1924 Death 1984 Subtitle The Letters of Truman Capote Country of Publication United States Place of Publication New York Edited by Gerald Clarke DOI 10.1604/9780375702419 Series Vintage International UK Release Date 2005-09-13 AU Release Date 2005-09-13 NZ Release Date 2005-09-13 US Release Date 2005-09-13 Illustrator Thomas Yeates Affiliation Research Scholar, Amal Jyothi Centre for Nanoscience and Technology, Kerala, India Position Former senior instructor and associate head, English (deceased) Qualifications MBE Pages 512 Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2005-09-13 Imprint Random House USA Inc Illustrations PHOTOS Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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