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The Death and Life of Truman Capote

“My life is so strange — it’s not like anybody else’s,” Capote said. And it wasn’t — his friendships and feuds were more intense, his talent greater.

For all of them, Truman always went a bit further: going along 49th Street to find a new shop for his barber, giving a People writer copies of his books and driving her all the way to the expressway so she wouldn’t get lost, dropping off pies and a quilt at the summer house of Jill Krementz and Kurt Vonnegut, befriend­ing and supporting the family of a lover during and after their affair. He says he has taken a new prescription drug: “lt has a strange effect — it makes me feel dizzy.” He likes the table they have given him right in the front: “I can see every monster as they come in.” Eventually, he finds his stride and begins telling stories about Le Pavilion and a wicked tale about the Duchess of Windsor waiting for Jimmy Donahue in the arcade of El Morocco. That sow sitting next to Betsy Whit­ney.” In this retelling, he introduces language, drama, de­tails, and analysis (“It was simply that for Dill she was the living incorporation of everything denied him, forbidden to him as a Jew, no matter how stylishly beguiling and rich he might be: the Racquet Club, Le Jockey … ”), reshaping his material and refiltering it through his perfect eye and ear.

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