Customer Reviews

Capote: a Biography

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I ran across this book and hadn't thought about Capote in years and got it on impulse. It is just a wonderful bio and captures what Capote was and why he attracted such attention. It is hard to imagine what a youngster he was when he came on the scene and how he was so very loved. The book is full of lovely stories and famous people. The chapters on the "swans" was my favorite but his relationships, the accounts of his writing, his amazing ambition and ability to have devoted friends and ultimately his terrible end are written like a novel. Capote was generous, brilliant, kind, warm, seductive,vicious at times and utterly captivating. I now want to reread his books. But the accounts of his travels abroad, his long stays at wonderful quaint places and the "moveable feast" of his early life made me long to have been there. I loved this bio.

By far, the best Capote biography to date. Clarke has a talent for giving us the facts, presented in such a way as to be entertaining and enlightening. He obviously knows his subject well and shows us this without pretension or the usual prestidigitation that so often accompanies biographies such as this. What strikes one first and foremost is the wonderful arc the book has. It is true that Capote's life had this arc already, but to be able to translate that from life to a book is not as easy as one would imagine.

Given the incredibly spotlight life that Capote led, much of the information in this book is axiomatic: the incidents of early life in New Orleans and Alabama, his mother's bi-polar if not manic travails, the uprooting at an early age to live in Greenwich, Connecticut, the infamous New Yorker job he held but for a short while; his elbow-rubbing with the jet set, ultimately culminating in Answered Prayers; the resulting fall from grace; the drugs, the alcohol. But it is the nuances, the small findings in this book, that make it unique and give it an edge over others. Clarke relates at one point how ill read Capote was, standing up in the middle of a film of a Dickens novel, shouting, "They've stolen my plot." Or his sad and telling description of Capote's last days at the home of Joanne Carson. His last words? "I'm cold." And he was gone.

This compelling biography is full of photographs that speak volumes as well: Capote as a child--innocent, a tabla rasa; Capote on the set of a movie; Capote vacationing. And a desperate-looking Capote clinging a little to hard to Marilyn Monroe. Wonderful and telling pictures that are enhanced by Gerald Clarke's troubling, wonderful, and ultimately entertaining look at Capote, the writer, and Capote the man. All-in-all a great read about one of America's greatest writers.

I bought this book partly because I so enjoyed Gerald Clarke's biography of Judy Garland, "Get Happy," and Clarke does not disappoint. "Capote" is meticulously researched and yet reads like the most entertaining novel, it's so interesting and filled with such extraordinary characters. I've always been fascinated by Truman Capote, and Clarke has done a wonderful job of bringing him to life in a very balanced, human way.

WHETHER OR NOT YOU LIKED TRUMAN CAPOTE OR HIS LIFESTYLE, THIS BOOK BRINGS TO LIFE ONE OF THE TRUE LITERARY GENIUSES OF OUR TIME. IT BRINGS OUT BOTH HIS CHARM AND HIS WORST QUALITIES, THE LEAST OF WHICH WAS HIS SEXUALITY. PEOPLE ADORED HIM AND FEARED HIM AT THE SAME TIME. THE PIVOTAL POINT IN HIS LIFE WAS WHEN HE WROTE THE MASTERPIECE "IN COLD BLOOD" AND SPENT MANY HOURS WITH THE PEOPLE IN THE SMALL TOWN OF HOLCOMB, KANSAS WHERE FOUR MEMBERS OF THE CLUTTER FAMILY WERE SAVAGELY MURDERED. AT FIRST THE TOWNS-PEOPLE WERE NOT SURE HOW THEY FELT ABOUT THIS LITTLE STRANGE MAN, THE LIKES OF WHICH THEY HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE BUT THEY WERE WON OVER BY HIS HONESTY, CHARM AND HOW SERIOUS HE WAS TO GET THE STORY RIGHT. THEY LOOKED FORWARD TO HIS MANY VISITS. MANY OF HIS FRIENDS SAID THAT AFTER HE FINISHED "IN COLD BLOOD" HE WAS A CHANGED PERSON. ALMOST AS THOUGH THE BOOK HAD TAKEN A MAJOR TOLL ON HIS LIFE. A MOST REMARKABLE MAN, WRITER AND ONE OF THE MOST MIS-UNDERSTOOD AUTHORS OF ALL TIME!!!

I found this excellent biography entertaining in two ways: for the true and hard way Capote's life was captured, highs and lows and everything in between, and for the prose itself that was very fine, I thought. I am a Southerner myself, from very close to Capote's South Alabama, and can vouch for the authenticity of the portrayal of his early years. I think this book is a must-read for fans of southern lit or southern writers, a wonderful companion to Plimpton's latest on Capote. Capote was lucky to have this biographer; he would have been pleased.

I found this excellent biography entertaining in two ways: for the true and hard way Capote's life was captured, highs and lows and everything in between, and for the prose itself that was very fine, I thought. I am a Southerner myself, from very close to Capote's South Alabama, and can vouch for the authenticity of the portrayal of his early years. I think this book is a must-read for fans of southern lit or southern writers, a wonderful companion to Plimpton's latest on Capote. Capote was lucky to have this biographer; he would have been pleased.

**Very highly recommended for the Capote-obsessed.** Clarke has every piece of information about Capote that a reader can dream of, and this in turn clues the reader in to what drove Capote. From childhood to death, Capote's life becomes an intriguing story that rivals his own writings.