Fascinated by the brief story, Capote traveled to Holcomb, scene of the Clutter family massacre, with Lee, and over the course of the next few years he became acquainted with everyone involved in the investigation and most of the residents of the small town. The book was inspired by a November 1959 300-word article in the back of the New York Times describing the unexplained murder of a family of four in rural Kansas. Lee lent Capote considerable assistance during his research for In Cold Blood. At least one person - Pearl Kazin Bell, an editor at Harper's - has gone on record as believing his assertions were true. Capote frequently implied that he himself had written a considerable portion of her novel, but some say he ghosted the entire novel. In 1933, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, Joseph, who adopted him and renamed him Truman Garcia Capote in 1935.Ĭapote was a lifelong friend and rumored lover of Monroeville neighbor Harper Lee, and was allegedly the inspiration for the character of Dill in her best-seller To Kill A Mockingbird. He was born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans, Louisiana and was sent to Monroeville, Alabama to be raised by his mother's relatives. He wrote a childhood memoir called A Christmas Memory that he adapted for television and narrated. He is best known for his "nonfiction novel" (a phrase he himself coined to describe journalism with a literary voice) In Cold Blood and the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, both of which were adapted into movies. Truman Capote ( Septem– August 25, 1984) was an American writer. The photo created a sensation when it appeared on the book jacket of Capote's first published work, Other Voices, Other Rooms It features themes that would appeal to readers concerned about the environment, industrialism, religious extremism, and overpopulation.Truman Capote by Harold Halma, 1948. And my third book, as previously mentioned, uses the history of Maui as a basis for a tale of self-discovery. It’s also my only book so far with gay protagonists. My first novel, Hyperdrive, is hard science fiction dealing with the terraforming of Mars. Alternate history fans, and anyone interested in World War II and the Cold War, would probably appreciate my latest book, The Bettor, about a history professor who makes a fortune during the war and then puts it to use changing the world’s political landscape. It’s more immediately relevant than the rest of my writing. It’s short, it has a lot of variety in it, and it’s based in part on the real-life development of an antiviral capable of curing HIV. 'That’s going to depend on individual taste, of course, but personally I think my second book, L’Affaire Famille, is my best and most accessible work so far. If someone is reading this interview and finds themselves wanting to read one of your books, which one would you suggest they begin with and why? I try to convey that there is no point in common between individuals except their shared humanity, and that the division of the human race into cultures, nations, societies and other groups is more or less idle imagination.' Humanity itself is perhaps my third major theme. As a rule, they live mentally in the future, not the present, and possess the unstated conviction that a single action by a single person, multiplied over enough time, can alter humanity as a whole. My characters reflect that in different ways. I’m far less concerned with how an action looks now than I am with its effects ten, a hundred, five hundred years in the future. They’re not Byronic anti-heroes, they’re victorious! Another focus of mine, a subtler one, is time. Every one of my novels features a single character, or a small group of characters, who work against organized society and overcome it. 'The biggest theme in my work is individualism. Is there any particular theme or focus that you feel represents you or your work? That can have a pretty strong impact on your writing.' You can stick your head out the door and smell the stench from the factory fifteen miles away. For us, here, pollution isn’t an abstract issue. And it’s the most vigorous protest I could make against the ongoing pollution of the island by the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company, which is doing its best to poison us while still operating at a loss. It discusses or hints at a variety of changes I would like to see made here on Maui, both culturally and economically. Maui was the main inspiration for my third novel, Totum Hominem, where I drew on the island’s history of exploitation by missionaries and agribusiness to create a fantasy about what might have happened to a similar land in a remote past, a fantasy that also serves as a cautionary tale about the future. Has Maui played a role in any of your stories? It is hard to think of Stephen King without thinking of Maine, Anne Rice without connecting her work to New Orleans.
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