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Portraits and Observations
Truman Capote
The Essays of Truman Capote
Random House
October 2007
On Sale: October 9, 2007
528 pages ISBN: 1400066611 EAN: 9781400066612 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Perhaps no twentieth century writer was so observant and
elegant a chronicler of his times as Truman Capote. Whether
he was profiling the rich and famous or creating indelible
word-pictures of events and places near and far, Capote’s
eye for detail and dazzling style made his reportage and
commentary undeniable triumphs of the form. Portraits and Observations is the first volume devoted
solely to all the essays ever published by this most beloved
of writers. From his travel sketches of Brooklyn, New
Orleans, and Hollywood, written when he was twenty-two, to
meditations about fame, fortune, and the writer’s art at the
peak of his career, to the brief works penned during the
isolated denouement of his life, these essays provide an
essential window into mid-twentieth-century America as
offered by one of its canniest observers. Included are such
celebrated masterpieces of narrative nonfiction as “The
Muses Are Heard” and the short nonfiction novel “Handcarved
Coffins,” as well as many long-out-of-print essays,
including portraits of Isak Dinesen, Mae West, Marcel
Duchamp, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe. Among the highlights are “Ghosts in Sunlight: The Filming of
In Cold Blood, “Preface to Music for Chameleons, in which
Capote candidly recounts the highs and lows of his long
career, and a playful self-portrait in the form of an
imaginary self-interview. The book concludes with the
author’s last written words, composed the day before his
death in 1984, the recently discovered
“Remembering Willa Cather,” Capote’s touching recollection
of his encounter with the author when he was a young man at
the dawn of his career. Portraits and Observations puts on display the full spectrum
of Truman Capote’s brilliance. Certainly, Capote was, as
Somerset Maugham famously called him, “a stylist of the
first quality.” But as the pieces gathered here remind us,
he was also an artist of remarkable substance.
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