A master at blending fact and fiction, both in his writing and in his personal life, Truman Capote was born on September 30, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His childhood was difficult due his parents' divorce, his mother's decision to send Truman to li...

When Truman Capote died on 25 August 1984, a month short of his sixtieth birthday, he had few mourners. In a letter to Helen S. Garson after the 1986 publication of Answered Prayers, Capote's longtime editor, Joe Fox, stated he was happy not to have to w...

Truman Capote (1924-1984) was one the most famous and controversial figures in contemporary American literature. The ornate style and dark psychological themes of his early fiction caused reviewers to categorize him as a Southern Gothic writer. However,...

There is pleasure in reporting how very fine [The Grass Harp] is, how admirably and even brilliantly accomplished—instinct with vitality and humor and a tenderness which never curdles into sentimentality. One's pleasure in this case has little to do with literary actualities: it rises, rather, from satisfaction at the confirmation of a talent…. The Grass Harp represents [Capote's] first serious experiment in major fiction. (p. 73)

It is true that the arboreal fable of The Grass Harp is meant to symbolize an escape from humdrum reality, that Mr. Capote's real theme is the search for one's real self, and that such a theme is not to be stigmatized as trite merely because it is traditional. It has the effect of triteness in this play because it is in no way rendered active by Mr. Capote's art: when he has finished it still belongs to tradition, he has in no way made it his own. When his people speak we hear only othe...

In so far as it is a story of youth and loneliness, Truman Capote's second novel resembles his first, but there are noteworthy differences in quality. "The Grass Harp" is less contrived than "Other Voices, Other Rooms," not so elaborately furnished, not so densely metaphorical. Although much of it is not quite literally credible, it is extravagant, rather than bizarre, and there are no such Gothic touches as the red tennis balls and the hanging mule. More of the writing is...