Capote (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Gerald Clarke
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Biography
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Journalism or journalists, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, 1940’s, Social life, 1920’s, 1930’s, 1980’s, Capital punishment
- Locales: California, New York, NY, Europe, Alabama, Kansas, Long Island, NY
From the very beginning of his literary career, Truman Capote had a flair for dramatizing his work and his life. The splendid photographs in this definitive biography present Capote the show-off, friend of the wealthy, and darling of the fashionable literary, social, and film crowd. There is plenty of gossip and inside dope on a writer who reveled in exposing the frivolity of his rich and glamorous sponsors, and the small talk is appropriate for a novelist who believed that human character is revealed in the items of chit-chat he peddled both in his writing and on late-night television talk shows.
Gerald Clarke has written much more than a celebrity biography. He takes Capote’s work seriously, discusses various drafts of the novels and stories, and provides a good picture of the critical reception accorded his subject’s work. If there is a failing in the biography, it is in Clarke’s own reluctance to make an overall appraisal of Capote’s oeuvre. This omission may be the result of his decision to construct his biography like a novel with a strong narrative thrust. In other words, Clarke has left for academics the chore--but also the important challenge--of explaining just how good a writer Capote is. Will he be regarded as merely a minor--if sensational--figure, or are IN COLD BLOOD and a few other works of sufficient importance to give him a permanent place in American literature? The answer is not clear from Clarke’s otherwise well-told story.
Sources for Further Study
Booklist. LXXXIV, April 15, 1988, p. 1369.
The Economist. CCCVIII, August 27, 1988, p. 78.
Kirkus Reviews. LVI, April 1, 1988, p. 508.
Library Journal. CXIII, June 15, 1988, p. 60.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. June 12, 1988, p. 3.
The New York Times Book Review. XCIII, June 12, 1988, p. 1.
Newsweek. CXI, May 30, 1988, p. 62.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXIII, May 13, 1988, p. 258.
Time. CXXXI, May 30, 1988, p. 60.
Vogue. CLXXVIII, June, 1988, p. 86.
The Wall Street Journal. June 2, 1988, p. 20.
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