Books

BOOKS: Author seen as influential but not a literary giant

11:41 PM CDT on Saturday, October 15, 2005

By CHARLES EALY / The Dallas Morning News

Truman Capote was an original, and there hasn't been another writer like him since his death in 1984. Flamboyantly effeminate, unschooled but intellectual, desperately seeking fame and fortune, the diminutive author was one of the most unusual and controversial writers in post-World War II America.

But many people might wonder: Was he really a great writer?

So far, the answer seems to be a qualified no. Even the late John Malcolm Brinnin, a notable critic and friend, contended that Capote failed to join the ranks of the great because he squandered his time, talent and health on the pursuit of celebrity, riches and pleasure.

Still, there's no denying that he was influential in the literary world, as the new movie Capote makes clear. A leading proponent of applying novelistic techniques to telling true stories, he achieved his biggest success with 1965's In Cold Blood. The book detailed the 1959 slaughter of a Kansas farm family and the trial and execution of the two killers. The new movie, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, focuses on this period of Capote's life.

In Cold Blood, first serialized in The New Yorker and then issued in book form, caused an unprecedented literary stir, and nearly every major critic considered it a masterpiece.

But In Cold Blood was the product of an ethically troubled writer. Capote insinuated himself into the lives of the two killers and pretended to be their friend. And when he finally had what he wanted, he openly expressed his wish that the killers would be hanged soon so that he could write the last chapter and reap the expected acclaim.

It's also clear that Capote was attracted to one of the killers, Perry Smith, identifying with his isolated, alcoholic upbringing. To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee – whose first name was really Nelle – was recruited by Capote to help him research In Cold Blood. As a boy, Capote was abandoned by his parents and raised by his three maiden cousins, next door to Lee's house in Monroeville, Ala. Lee used him as the model for the geeky Dill in Mockingbird.

Years later, Lee told Capote biographer Gerald Clarke an illuminating story about the tiny author's reaction to Perry Smith. "When Perry sat down in front of the judge to be arraigned, Truman nudged Nelle. 'Look, his feet don't touch the floor!' Nelle said nothing but thought: 'Oh, no! This is the beginning of a great love affair.' "

Probably the biggest ethical problem for In Cold Blood, though, is the made-up ending. Rather than stop with the execution of the killers, Capote decided on a nostalgic conclusion, creating a springtime cemetery encounter between the detective who led the Kansas investigation and a friend of the slain Clutter girl. It turns out that the detective's son is entering college, while the friend is completing it. As Mr. Clarke writes, "The message is clear: Life continues even amidst death."

Such sentiments may be emotionally valid, but Capote billed In Cold Blood as narrative journalism. And such fabrications raise questions about the reliability of the rest of the book.

Still, there's no denying the visceral, narrative power of In Cold Blood, and it's much more of an artistic success than Capote's fiction.

Capote wrote many of his novels and short stories in his late teens and early 20s. His first book, 1948's Other Voices, Other Rooms, was Gothic and semi-autobiographical, charting a man's acceptance of his homosexuality. The photo on the dust jacket, showing Capote lying Lolita-like on a divan, caused as much of a stir as the book itself.

His second, The Grass Harp, was a brighter version of his childhood in Monroeville. Its heroine, Dolly Talbo, eventually takes refuge in a tree.

Both novels received mixed reviews, with several critics pointing to inadequate endings, a problem that was to plague Capote for most of his career.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) helped cement Capote's reputation as a fiction writer, and the author called Holly Golightly his favorite character. As Mr. Clarke wrote, "Her whole life is an expression of freedom and acceptance of human irregularities, her own as well as everybody else's."

This month, Random House is issuing an unpublished early Capote novella, Summer Crossing – timed to capitalize on the movie's release.

As with his other fiction, this one suffers from slightness. It focuses on a rich young woman who pursues a relationship with a parking-lot attendant while her parents sail to Europe for the summer. The main character resembles Golightly, but Capote himself never wanted the book published, and it's easy to see why.

In later years, Capote dreamed of becoming the American Proust with Answered Prayers, which he saw as a social critique. As he had done on numerous occasions, Capote used some of the sexual secrets he had pried out of his friends and used their real names in a chapter published by Esquire.

The reaction was immediate, and the former social darling became a pariah. He never finished Answered Prayers and descended into alcoholism and drug abuse.

It was as if the techniques that he had used so well in the past had finally caught up with him.

E-mail cealy@dallasnews.com