Capote: A Biography by Clarke, Gerald (September 21, 2010) Paperback

by Gerald Clarke

From instant celebrity at age 23 to alcoholic loner by mid-life, Truman Capote streaked across the middle of this century on a comet of genius, self-destruction and fame. Drawing on interviews with Capote and with nearly everyone who knew him, and with exclusive access to personal papers, Gerald Clarke has written the definitive biography of an incomparable man and his time. 32-pg. photo insert.

Unknown Binding

About the author

Gerald Clarke is a journalist and biographer.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Gee, I wish we had time to talk about Truman's books". TV interviewer to Capote biographer Gerald Clarke. That's the way Truman would have wanted it. Capote was smart enough to know the chances of a writer in America being remembered for his writings were, and are, next to none. He lacked the artistic genius of his friend and enemy Tennessee Williams, and the passion for politics and history of his bete noire, Gore Vidal. Thus, he set about inventing a role and occupation for himself, "Truman Capote". The Capote of the gossip columns, talk shows and scandals is what remains. If anyone still reads IN COLD BLOOD or BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S that is just icing on the cake. Gerald Clarke, biographer of the great and infamous (JUDY GARLAND) was commissioned by Capote to write this biography without having any say over the finished product. Capote's untimely death in 1984 at the home of his good friend Joanna Carson in California assured that. Clarke decided to untangle the man from the self-constructed mendacity. How do you invent a persona? In Capote's case it began early. An only son, called by his multiple times divorced mother "Little Miss Fart", Truman, re-named Capote after his mother's latest husband, "a Cuban gambler gentleman", was passed from aunt to aunt in the South while establishing only one friendship, Harper Lee, who immortalized him as "Dill" in TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. There was never a moment in his life when Capote did not work at being a writer. Possessing little formal education, Truman's first recorded lie was claiming to possess "an IQ so high it could not be measured". That self-confidence took him to New York, a copy desk job at the NEW YORKER, getting fired from the magazine, a morbid obsession with Forties hot-young-thing- Andy Warhol, and the publication of his first novel, OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS, made infamous by the back piece photo of Capote sprawled on a lounge sofa with a "fuck-me" look on his face. In a rare act of courage, Capote was openly gay in an America where such a thing was punishable by law, and worse for him, literary ruin. Capote knew the value of shock, and it served him all his life. International fame came with that first novel published at 24, then the obligatory writers trip to Europe with life-long companion Jack Dunphy, friendships and then the inevitable breakups, with Williams and Vidal, and enough money to gain entrance to New York's jet set, especially rich, bored wives. He managed to convince the press, although not his literary peers or critics, that he was a major American writer by fiat and ex cathedra pronouncements on sex, politics, religion and crime. Capote chose the senseless killing in Kansas of an entire farm family for a subject matter simply because he surmised the public would be fascinated by these grisly murders. IN COLD BLOOD was a best-seller by design. His celebrated masked ball party in New York to toast his success, in the company of Katherine Graham, "Babe" Paley and other high society swans sowed the seeds of his destruction. Their indiscretions over lunches and at drunken parties became fodder for his ESQUIRE short stories, for which they savaged Capote and kicked him out of their millionairess heaven. Truman took to drink, drugs and promotion of a non-existent novel, ANSWERED PRAYERS, whose alleged contents varied from interview to interview. In his final years in New York and Hollywood, but above all on television, he resembled a crack addicted bag lady. When death came it no doubt relieved him of the burden of having ever again to write. All this Clarke captures with the right balance of pathos and bathos. Capote was, in his own words, "an amoral, cultivated monster"; a minor American writer who captured fame at the price of not only his talent but sanity.

[Joseph Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truman Capote never got his due. He was the most gifted American novelist since World War II. One of the best biographies I have read. After the In Cold Blood part (1966) it became increasingly dispiriting to read.