Truman Capote: The Flawed Author of In Cold Blood
Truman Capote: The Troubled Author of In Cold Blood
18 Jan 2024
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Truman Capote was a darling of the New York literary set long before he became an international sensation with the publication of his novel In Cold Blood in 1965. He had written short stories and essays, novels, a novella, contributed to screenplays, and provided critical essays on other works. A Southerner by birth, he was a fixture of the New York social scene.
After he published In Cold Blood, he found himself in demand for talk shows and public appearances. Magazines and newspapers peppered him for interviews and commentary. An openly gay celebrity was a rarity at the time. Capote was not only openly gay, he was flamboyantly gay. He hobnobbed with celebrities, claimed sexual relationships with celebrities of both sexes (including Errol Flynn and Greta Garbo), attended lavish parties, and became a dominant personage in society in New York, London, and Beverly Hills. Among the many celebrities he partied with were Lee Radziwill and her sister Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Princess Margaret, Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, and Elizabeth Taylor.
He seemed to thrive on little more than drugs, alcohol, gossip, and controversy. He gleefully feuded with some celebrities, including author Gore Vidal, who once said of him, “Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art”. Capote responded with the comment, “Of course, I’m always sad about Gore. Very sad that he has to breathe every day”.
Their feud continued until Capote's death, which Vidal described to a press reporter as “a wise career move”. By the end of his life, Capote had made being a celebrity the focus of his career, having not published anything but a few essays since the appearance of In Cold Blood in 1966. Yet he had remained one of the major literary influences of the late 20th century.
In 1968, Truman Capote sat for an extensive interview with Playboy Magazine. During the course of the interview, which covered that year’s presidential election, the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and his fellow writers and artists, Playboy asked him, “Are there any writers on the current literary scene whom you consider truly great?”. Capote responded, “Yes. Truman Capote”. He then listed several others he considered “commendable”. Gore Vidal was not among them. And none ranked equally to him, in his estimation.
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Further Reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/14/gore-vidal-gripped-a-nation
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/books/truman-capote-playboy-interview/
https://archives.nypl.org/mss/469
https://archive.org/details/capotebiography0000clar/mode/2up?view=theater
https://scholar.harvard.edu/michaeluy/publications/performing-catfish-row-soviet-union-everyman-opera-company-and-porgy-and-bess
https://untappedcities.com/2021/03/24/truman-capote-house-brooklyn/
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2012/aug/06/review-breakfast-at-tiffanys-truman-capote
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-two-forgotten-pieces-tell-us-about-harper-lee
https://lithub.com/how-truman-capote-was-destroyed-by-his-own-masterpiece/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/28/rolling-stones-us-tour-1972-archive
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/956957275
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