Truman Capote; In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career

New York: Doubleday [Nan A. Talese], 1997. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Richard Avedon [Jacket photograph]. xiv, 498 pages. Illustrated endpapers. Note to the Reader. Illustrations. Chronology. Biographies of Contributors. Sources for Printed Material by Truman Capote and Jack Dunphy. Index. DJ has autographed copy sticker on the front and minor wear and soiling. Signed on the page facing the primary title page. Minor weakness at page 496/7. George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review, as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for "participatory journalism," including accounts of his active involvement in professional sporting events, acting in a Western, performing a comedy act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur. Truman Garcia Capote (born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 - August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966). His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas. Capote honed his writing ability throughout his childhood. The critical success of "Miriam" (1945) attracted the attention of Bennett Cerf and resulted in a contract to write the novel Other Voices, Other Rooms. Capote earned fame with In Cold Blood, a journalistic work about the murder of a Kansas farm family. He was the most social of writers, and at the height of his career he was the point where the glamorous worlds of the arts, society, and politics all met--a status perhaps best exemplified by his still-legendary Black and White Ball. Truman Capote truly knew everyone, and now the people who knew him best tell his remarkable story to bestselling author and literary lion George Plimpton. Using oral biography, a technique that perfectly matches the style of his subject, George Plimpton blends the voices of Capote's lovers, haters, acquaintances, and colleagues into a captivating and highly readable narrative. Here we are present for the entire span of Capote's life: his Southern childhood and his early days in New York; his first literary success with the publication of Other Voices, Other Rooms; his highly active love life; the groundbreaking excitement of In Cold Blood, the first "nonfiction novel"; his years as a jet-setter; and his final days of flagging inspiration, alcoholism, and isolation. All his famous friends and enemies are here: Katherine Graham, Lauren Bacall, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Lee Radziwill, John Huston, John Knowles, William F. Buckley, Jr., and dozens of others. Full of wonderful stories, startlingly intimate, and altogether fascinating, this is the most entertaining account of Truman Capote's life yet, as only the incomparable George Plimpton could write it.