Truman Capote: Amazon.ca: George Plimpton: Books

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Nobody can match George Plimpton as an adroit weaver of interviews into a tight narrative fabric. Plimpton can make even a negligible life into a magic-carpet ride, as in his editing of Jean Stein's perennial bestseller, Edie, about Andy Warhol's victim-starlet Edie Sedgwick.

In Truman Capote, Plimpton has an infinitely more important subject, who worked his way down from the top into the shallow pit of druggy celebrity. His book doesn't knock the definitive biography Capote off the shelf, but it's much more fun to read. Plimpton interviewed more than a hundred people--from Capote's childhood to his peak period, 1966, when his Black and White Ball defined high society and In Cold Blood launched the true crime genre, all the way down to his last, sad days as a bitchy caricature of himself. Joanna Carson complains that Plimpton's book is "gossip," which it gloriously is. But it's also brimming with important literary history, and it helps in the Herculean task of sorting out the truth from Capote's multitudinous, entertaining lies; for instance, In Cold Blood turns out to be not strictly factual. James Dickey, whose similar self-destruction is chronicled in Summer of Deliverance, delivers here a good definition of Capote's true gift to literature: "The scene stirring with rightness and strangeness, the compressed phrase, the exact yet imaginative word, the devastating metaphorical aptness, a feeling of concentrated excess which at the same time gives the effect of being crystalline." --Tim Appelo --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

An oral biography that blends the voices of Capote's friends and enemies.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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13 Reviews

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3.9 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars a life told in gossip, April 11 2002

By

Orin K. Hargraves (Westminster, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintences and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (Paperback)

If there was ever a person who deserved to have his whole story told in the form of gossip by people who knew him, it was TC, and that's what George Plimpton has done for him. Whether you liked the guy or not, this is a fascinating read about one of the most interesting American personalities of the 20th century. It gives many interesting insights into why TC wrote as he did, why he was so good at it, and why he went downhill so fast. Plimpton is nearly faultless in the presentation of the material in logical order; there are a few entries that could have been cut without sacrificing any quality, mostly entries where contributors go on about themselves rather than TC. But these are telling in their own way, and you can always just skip them if you don't like them. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the subject, as well as (1) 20th century American writing generally; (2) pre-Stonewall gay life in the US; (3) New York society in the 1960s; and (4) Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird; she figures significantly both in TC's early and adult life.

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3.0 out of 5 stars An Odd Bird, Feb 12 2002

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"sielaff68" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintences and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (Paperback)

I sometimes struggle with biographies (although they're not nearly as boorish as many autobiographies). This was was fairly interesting, though, if for no other reason than the fact that Capote was so unusual. The high society peek was also entertaining.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Capote the Writer was Lost in Ten Years - Sad Tale, Mar 7 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintences and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (Paperback)

The most moving aspect of this collection of oral recollections is how it highlights that Capote as a promising fiction writer existed only for ten years: 1948 to 1958. Between that time came his best (and pretty much ALL) of his fiction: his wonderful, lyrical novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms; his first short story collection; and, in 1958, Breakfast at Tiffany's. After 1958 the slide began. The oral stories in this book movingly underline the point that despite the huge success of In Cold Blood, that book was mere journalism (friends who cared about him as a writer noticed), and that Capote never got back to the promising fiction of his first decade.

After In Cold Blood which there was nothing but the parties - the now faded and tawdry-looking ball ball Capote threw at the Plaza Hotel (check out the telling photos Plimpton includes); a friend who attended cried in disbelief "This is supposed to be a great writer we're talking about." The period of playing mascot to wealthy cafe society is also included in all its irrelevant detail, as are the final, dismal years when Truman found it easier to go on Johnny Carson to "do" his "Truman Capote" routine rather than write. The decline in his personality is painful to read about and his constant lying and slandering of friends and other writers (a bizarre attack and libel on Gore Vidal, for example), makes him look an unpleasant irrelevance. His final brain-addled message to his lawyer ("I WANT to die!") and his tawdry death in the house of an ex-wife of Johnny Carson, add an odd, ironical pathos. Capote was a figure of fun in later life but this book, for all its cheapness and relying on (mostly) shallow "friends" for insight is a sad and moving testimony to a potentially great literary writer who never fulfilled the promise of his amazing first decade. I found it unexpectedly moving.

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Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars okay
The one thing doddering party boy Plimpton is good for is doing these oral bios. They're shallow fun. Except they're probably thrown together by his assistants anyway.

Published on Dec 17 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars A Full Life Full Of Gossip, Tragedy And Success!
Plimpton does a great literary service in this collection of "gossip" so perfectly interwoven, one can't realize how much fun a hayride it is. Read more

Published on July 25 2001 by Martin A Hogan