Lost Friendships: A Memoir of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Others

by Donald Windham

Donald Windhams Erinnerungen an seine Freundschaften mit Truman Capote und Tenessee Williams sind ein einzigartig intimer und ehrlicher Blick auf die Literaturwelt seiner Zeit und auf zwei der berühmtesten Schriftsteller der USA. Erstmals auf Deutsch.
Zwischen Windham und Williams ist es eine Art Liebe auf den ersten Blick; die beiden leben und arbeiten zeitweise zusammen und produzieren 1945 ein gemeinsames Stück am Broadway. Langjährige, sehr enge Freundschaften entstehen. Aber der große Ruhm katapultiert Capote und Williams in Umlaufbahnen, in die ihnen zu folgen für Windham immer schwerer wird, bis es in beiden Fällen zu einem bitteren Ende kommt. Donald Windham beschreibt all dies in seinem Erinnerungsbuch ebenso vielschichtig wie eindringlich, reich an Details und voller Anekdoten auch über viele andere berühmte Beteiligte, unter anderem D.  H. Lawrence als Nacktputzer, eine schwer getroffene Tania Blixen oder ein sparsamer André Gide.

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction

270 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1987

About the author

His obituary-of-record here has a good summary of his personal and creative life.

Reviews

[Djrmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Losing a friend, whether it be to death or changes in life, is a painful thing. Windham's pain at losing people he thought he was very close might have made it impossible for him to see anything beyond his own loss. He mentions that he best knew Capote at the beginning of Capote's literary life and best knew Williams at the end of his career, and that is the disclaimer the reader needs to keep in mind as they push themselves through this very sad book. Are we seeing only one side of the "lost" friends? Most certainly. Were they really as close as Windham thought, or had he misjudged his importance in the lives of these giants? There's not much hew biographical information on the writers Windham's life touched (along with the titled men, there is Gide, Vidal, and a few more), but there is some debunking of popular myths based on first person evidence. The lives of Capote and Williams did not end on a happy note, they were notorious people-users, so to expect anything other than regrets in this memoir from someone who came back to thier abuse over and over again would be delusional. These are the writings of someone who lived with the heartache and never quite got past it.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nostalgia is the expected mode for a memoir of significant relationships.

Instead, Windham approaches his memoir as an act of investigative journalism. Fatal miscommunications and bruised egos are ultimately revealed to be the end products of various unrecognized emotional tendencies and deliberate professional strategies employed by Williams and Capote throughout their lives.

One could suspect that this book is largely sour grapes on the part of a talented, but much less successful writer. However, Windham's memoir is full of love for the friends of his youth, appreciation for the literary talent that drove them all for good or ill, and a pervasive sense of what might have been.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a poignant and truthful book about Windham's relations with some great writers. He is a great writer himself.

It is very sad to hear that Windham died on May 31, 2010. He was a kind and generous person, and will be missed.

[David Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good dish on Gore Vidal. Helps complete the story Tennessee Williams left out in "Memoirs." Written in a less compelling manner than "Memoirs."