[While the stories in A Tree of Night and Other Stories are] extremely well-written they are a slippery witchery collection. The usual theme seems to be pursuit—and escape. People are brought face to face and often overwhelmed by the unacknowledged desire and/or fear. When done well this is always an interesting theme. Capote matches logic with the perversely illogical. But his ideas are enshrined in technical fluency, tricks of impressionism and the like, and this makes it difficult to judge at first whether they are utter nonsense, ash from a psychoanalytic binge, or whether they should be taken seriously. The only argument for the latter it seems to me is that Capote takes his subjects to an undefinable area of the soul where usual standards are hard to apply. If this area exists any author who can exploit it has hit a goldmine where he cannot be assailed.
On the credit side is Truman Capote's feeling and capacity for the art of writing. He can express the inner eye, he can invoke, and his prose is careful and effective. It is also journalistic enough to be very easy and pleasant to follow. But what does he choose to see and to invoke and to select? A personal imagery which lacks meaning when brought out and considered in the light of day. These stories intrigue but do not satisfy.
Virginia Bennett, "Books: 'A Tree of Night and Other Stories'," in Commonweal (copyright © 1949 Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.; reprinted by permission of Commonweal Publishing Co., Inc.), Vol. L, No. 3, April 29, 1949, p. 77.
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