Truman Capote-Enfant Terrible

by Long, Robert Emmet

• ISBN13: 9780826427632
• ISBN10: 0826427634
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-15
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

"This is a critical biography of Truman Capote's career from his early beginnings in rural Alabama to his death in Beverly Hills. Coverage includes the writing and staging of The Grass Harp, and its later adaptation as a Hollywood film, and the story behind "House of Flowers," from a travel sketch to a Broadway musical. But the thrust of the book, and its greatest strength, is its depiction of Capote as a virtuoso, able to command a large popular audience and also to impress connoisseurs of literature. As Robert Emmet Long shows, Capote abounded in the seeming contradictions and multiple personalities within himself that ultimately led to his destruction. His career incorporated both a beguiling comic sense and a dark sense of the failure of love and aspiration."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Robert Emmet Long taught in the English department at Queens College, CUNY.

Table of Contents

The Early Years: Engaging Two Worlds	p. 1
Early Stories: "Miriam," "A Tree of Night," "The Headless Hawk," "Shut a Final Door," "Master Misery," and "Children on Their Birthdays"	p. 13
Summer Crossing	p. 33
Other Voices, Other Rooms	p. 40
Early 1950s Reportage, Theater, and Films: Local Color, The Grass Harp, "House of Flowers," and Beat the Devil	p. 49
The Mid- to Late 1950s: The Muses Are Heard, "The Duke in His Domain," Observations, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and The Innocents	p. 65
In Cold Blood	p. 81
Late Capote: Music for Chameleons, Answered Prayers, and Other Writings	p. 94
Capote in Retrospect	p. 115
Bibliography	p. 121
Index	p. 125
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.