Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

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

Nobody can match George Plimpton as an adroit weaver of interviews into a tight narrative fabric. Plimpton can make even a negligible life into a magic-carpet ride, as in his editing of Jean Stein's perennial bestseller, Edie, about Andy Warhol's victim-starlet Edie Sedgwick. In Truman Capote, Plimpton has an infinitely more important subject, who worked his way down from the top into the shallow pit of druggy celebrity. His book doesn't knock the definitive biography Capote off the shelf, but it's much more fun to read. Plimpton interviewed more than a hundred people--from Capote's childhood to his peak period, 1966, when his Black and White Ball defined high society and In Cold Blood launched the true crime genre, all the way down to his last, sad days as a bitchy caricature of himself. Joanna Carson complains that Plimpton's book is "gossip," which it gloriously is. But it's also brimming with important literary history, and it helps in the Herculean task of sorting out the truth from Capote's multitudinous, entertaining lies; for instance, In Cold Blood turns out to be not strictly factual. James Dickey, whose similar self-destruction is chronicled in Summer of Deliverance, delivers here a good definition of Capote's true gift to literature: "The scene stirring with rightness and strangeness, the compressed phrase, the exact yet imaginative word, the devastating metaphorical aptness, a feeling of concentrated excess which at the same time gives the effect of being crystalline." --Tim Appelo Read More

from£N/A | RRP: £24.25
* Excludes Voucher Code Discount Also available Used from £N/A
  • Product Description

    He was the most social of writers, and at the height of his career he was the point where the glamorous worlds of the arts, society, and politics all met--a status perhaps best exemplified by his still-legendary Black and White Ball. Truman Capote truly knew everyone, and now the people who knew him best tell his remarkable story to bestselling author and literary lion George Plimpton.

    Using oral biography, a technique that perfectly matches the style of his subject, George Plimpton blends the voices of Capote's lovers, haters, acquaintances, and colleagues into a captivating and highly readable narrative. Here we are present for the entire span of Capote's life: his Southern childhood and his early days in New York; his first literary success with the publication of Other Voices, Other Rooms; his highly active love life; the groundbreaking excitement of In Cold Blood, the first "nonfiction novel"; his years as a jet-setter; and his final days of flagging inspiration, alcoholism, and isolation. All his famous friends and enemies are here: Katherine Graham, Lauren Bacall, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Lee Radziwill, John Huston, John Knowles, William F. Buckley, Jr., and dozens of others.

    Full of wonderful stories, startlingly intimate, and altogether fascinating, this is the most entertaining account of Truman Capote's life yet, as only the incomparable George Plimpton could write it.

  • 0385232497
  • 9780385232494
  • George Plimpton
  • 1 December 1997
  • Doubleday
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 512
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. If you click through any of the links below and make a purchase we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). Click here to learn more.

Would you like your name to appear with the review?

We will post your book review within a day or so as long as it meets our guidelines and terms and conditions. All reviews submitted become the licensed property of www.find-book.co.uk as written in our terms and conditions. None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.

All form fields are required.