This Goodly Land

Truman Capote (September 30, 1924–August 25, 1984)

Other Names Used

• Truman Streckfus Persons: birth name
• Truman Garcia Capote: adoptive name

Alabama Connections

• Monroeville, Monroe County: childhood residence

Selected Works

• Capote, Truman. Other Voices, Other Rooms. New York: Random House, 1948. Rpt. New York: Random House, 1968. Rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Rpt. New York: Modern Library, 2004.
• Capote, Truman. The Grass Harp. New York: Random House, 1951. Rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
• Capote, Truman. A Christmas Memory. New York: Random House, 1956. Rpt. New York: Random House, 1966. Rpt. New York: Knopf, 1989. Rpt. New York: A. A. Knopf, 2006.
• Capote, Truman. Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories. New York: Random House, 1958. Rpt. New York: New American Library, 1980. Rpt. New York: Modern Library, 1994.
• Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. New York: Random House, 1965. Rpt. New York: Modern Library, 1992. Rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Rpt. New York: Random House, 2002.
• Capote, Truman. The Thanksgiving Visitor. New York: Random House, 1968. Rpt. New York: Knopf, 1996.
• Capote, Truman. The Complete Stories of Truman Capote. New York: Random House, 2004.
• Capote, Truman. Summer Crossing: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2006.
• Capote, Truman. Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote. New York: Random House, 2007.

Literary Awards

• "Miriam" included in O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1946
• “Shut a Final Door," First Prize, Prize Stories of 1948: The O. Henry Awards
• “The House of Flowers," Third Prize, Prize Stories 1951: The O. Henry Awards
• Award in Literature, National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1959
• Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, Mystery Writers of America, 1962, for The Innocents
• Inducted as a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1964
• Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Fact Crime, Mystery Writers of America, 1966, for In Cold Blood
• Emmy Award, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 1967, for the television adaptation of A Christmas Memory

Biographical Information

Truman Capote was born in New Orleans but spent much of his childhood in the care of his mother's relatives in Monroeville, Ala. Harper Lee's family lived next door, and the two grew up together and were lifelong friends. In 1933, Capote moved to New York to live with his mother and her second husband, who eventually adopted him. Capote always knew that he would become a writer and began writing stories as a child. He was encouraged in his ambitions by one of his high school teachers, Miss Catherine Wood. Capote decided not to attend college and got a job at The New Yorker magazine as a copyboy and messenger. The New Yorker refused to publish his short stories, but he was able to make helpful contacts in the New York literary world. Capote's big break came when Mademoiselle published his short story "Miriam." He obtained a residency at Yaddo, an artists’ and writers’ colony in upstate New York, where he worked on his writing and made more literary contacts. His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, was published in 1948.

Capote had difficulty writing at his parents’ home in New York and began living and working in Europe for extended periods of time. He also experimented with different forms of writing. In addition to his short stories and novels, Capote wrote travel articles and portraits of celebrities for popular magazines which were later collected and published in book form. He adapted two of his stories for the stage and wrote the screenplay for the film Beat the Devil. In 1959, Capote saw a newspaper account of a set of murders in a small Kansas town. He thought the story would make a good subject for a type of work he called the "nonfiction novel." He and his friend Harper Lee went out to Kansas to do research. The book that resulted from this work, In Cold Blood, took six years to complete. It was immensely successful and left him financially well off but emotionally depleted. He continued writing, but his work was less successful, impaired at least partially by drug and alcohol abuse. In the mid-1970s, Esquire published several chapters of a proposed new book to be called Answered Prayers. The characters were thinly disguised versions of Capote’s celebrity friends, who were outraged at the invasion of their privacy. Cast out of the "jet set," he continued to work, but his abuse of drugs and alcohol caused both his writing and his health to deteriorate. While staying at the home of a friend, he died from complications of liver disease.

Interests and Themes

Truman Capote’s work, both fiction and nonfiction, is notable for vivid characters and poetic evocations of locale. One of his major themes is the loneliness that results from being different and unable to fit into the surrounding world and its society. A Christmas Memory and The Thanksgiving Visitor are warm and loving stories of his childhood in Monroeville.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Books

• Bloom, Harold, ed. Truman Capote. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003.
• Capote, Truman. Truman Capote: Conversations. Ed. M. Thomas Inge. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1987.
• Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.
• Garson, Helen S. Truman Capote: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.
• Moates, Marianne M. Truman Capote's Southern Years: Stories from a Monroeville Cousin. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996.
• Plimpton, George. Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 1997.
• Waldmeir, Joseph J., and John C. Waldmeir, eds. The Critical Response to Truman Capote. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Reference Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries

• "Capote, Truman 1924-1984"; Something About the Author. Vol. 91. Detroit: Gale, . 32-36.

Reference Web Sites

• McMillan, Norman. "Truman Capote". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. 2008. Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1115.
• Swaim, Don. "Audio Interview with Gerald Clarke about Truman Capote". Wired For Books. Ohio University. http://www.wiredforbooks.org/geraldclarke/index.htm.

Location of Papers

• Library of Congress
• New York Public Library
• University of Georgia

Photo by Carl Van Vechten; courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, LC-USZ62-118429.

Last updated on May 30, 2008.