Truman Capote
(1924–1984)
Truman Capote was born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans. His parents divorced when he was four, and he was sent to live with relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. There, Capote met the elderly cousin whom he later wrote about in "A Christmas Memory" (1966), and The Thanksgiving Visitor (1967), which describe childhood experiences.
As a teenager, Capote was sent to New York to live with his mother and her new husband, Joseph Garcia Capote, and changed his last name to that of his stepfather. Capote attended a number of schools and briefly worked at the New Yorker before his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, was published in 1948.
Due in part to this novel’s controversial subject matter, Capote soon became well-known and a part of the elite social scene of New York. His 1958 novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, drew inspiration from the social life in which he had been immersed.
In his next work, Capote tried a different literary style. In Cold Blood (1966), a journalistic "nonfiction novel," Capote wrote about two drifters who murdered a Kansas family. Capote researched the case for years, even interviewing the two murderers.
In Cold Blood was a dramatic success. To celebrate, Capote gave a masked ball, called the "Black and White Ball," in New York, which was attended by hundreds of celebrities. However, the ball offended some who were not invited, and Capote later offended other celebrities and friends by publishing cynical, gossiping stories about those in his social circle. Hurt and depressed by the reaction to his stories, Capote spiraled into addiction. He died in 1984.
