Capote
Page 66
page 94 “‘Oh, those were funny days!’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, December 17, 1975.
page 94 “‘She was in a very shaky state…’”: Pearl Kazin Bell to GC, August 10, 1976.
page 95 “‘As an editor it seems to me as though…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, July 12, 1946.
page 95 “‘Who thought about those things?’”: Doris Lilly to GC, October 25, 1975.
page 96 “‘Do you know anything about a writer named Waugh?’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 96 “‘Write about what you know,’ he told her…”: Doris Lilly to GC, October 25, 1975.
page 96 “‘The first time I saw her…’”: TC eulogy of Carson McCullers, on file, American Institute of Arts and Letters, New York.
page 97 “‘she was enchanted with him…’”: Jordan Massee to GC, February 16, 1977.
page 97 “‘An hour with a dentist…’”: Stanton and Vidal, Views from a Window, page 180.
page 97 “‘Carson’s family was wildly Southern…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 98 “she helped no other young writer as enthusiastically as she did Truman”: Carr, The Lonely Hunter, page 261.
page 98 “signed Truman to a contract…”: Selma Robinson, op. cit., pages 6–8.
page 98 “‘Now you’re going to be a writer…’”: Jerry Tallmer, New York Post, December 16, 1967, page 26.
page 98 “‘Well, that was a day…’”: Cerf, At Random, page 223.
CHAPTER 14
page 99 “‘Night after night I would see him…’”: Joe Capote to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 100 “…on May 1, 1946, he…”: Curtis Harnack, Yaddo executive director, in a letter to GC, March 25, 1977.
page 100 “Surrounded by gentle hills…”: “LIFE Visits Yaddo,” Life, July 15, 1946.
page 101 “With the tail of his shirt flapping…”: Marguerite Young to GC, January 22, 1976.
page 101 “‘Spontaneous when others are cautious…’”: Brinnin, Sextet, page 9.
page 101 “‘You just go right ahead, honey chile…’”: Marguerite Young to GC, January 22, 1976.
page 102 “‘From where did he come…’”: Leo Lerman to GC, May 5, 1976.
page 102 “‘She must be about sixty,’ he said…”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, May, 1946.
page 102 “Sending a dispatch from the front…”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, May 18, 1946.
page 102 “In another letter to Mary Louise…”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, spring, 1946.
page 103 “‘the strangest thing is going on…’”: Ibid.
page 103 “‘The little one has been…’”: John Malcolm Brinnin to GC, October 18–19, 1981.
page 103 “‘He had a marvelous voice…’”: Ibid.
page 103 “‘Howard was prone to very…’”: Frances Doughty to GC, September 10, 1983.
page 104 “…encircled by what he called the ‘magic ring’…”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, June 17, 1946.
page 104 “‘I can’t down the desire…’”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, June 20, 1946.
page 105 “‘But you know, dearest T.C.…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, summer, 1946.
page 106 “‘I have read three of your stories…’”: Ibid.
page 107 “‘You dope—how can you think…’”: Howard Doughty to Newton Arvin, June 19, 1946.
page 107 “‘You are very understanding…’”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, June 20, 1946.
page 108 “He looked like ‘a million dollars,’ Newton…”: Newton Arvin to Granville Hicks, July 17, 1946.
page 109 “‘Suddenly the tower room was…’”: Brinnin, Sextet, page 11.
CHAPTER 15
page 110 “Was Newton an important…”: Brinnin, Sextet, page 6.
page 110 “Alfred Kazin, also a critic…”: Alfred Kazin, “The Burning Human Values in Melville,” New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1950, page 6.
page 110 “Wilson himself praised him for…”: Edmund Wilson, “Arvin’s Longfellow and New York State’s Geology,” The New Yorker, March 23, 1963.
page 111 “Born in Valparaiso, Indiana…”: Newton’s early life is detailed in an unfinished, unpublished memoir titled The Past Recaptured, which is in the Smith College Library. Much of his history is also recorded in various alumni reports from the Harvard class of 1921; these are on deposit in Harvard’s Pusey Library. Also of great interest is the introduction to American Pantheon by his friend and colleague Daniel Aaron.
page 111 “‘He was a fearful, timorous…’”: Daniel Aaron to GC, April 21, 1983.
page 111 “She was outgoing where he was shy…”: Mary Garrison Grand to GC, April 8, 1975.
page 112 “‘He was extremely generous…’”: Ibid.
page 112 “‘There is such a thing as…’”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, October 30, 1945.
page 113 “One of those attempts was stamped…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 114 “feeling of ‘psychological euphoria…’”: Newton Arvin to Granville Hicks, late July, 1946.
page 114 “‘All would be fair indeed…’”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, July 25, 1946.
page 114 “‘Look where I am!’”: TC to Howard Doughty, July 29, 1946.
page 115 “‘I had a wonderful time…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, August 4, 1946.
page 115 “‘Your letters make a music…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, September 11, 1946.
page 116 “‘I am still looking…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, August 6, 1946.
page 116 “‘I woke up in the night…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, September 11, 1946.
page 116 “Carson, who only a few months before…”: Carr, The Lonely Hunter, page 267.
page 117 “‘I hear all sorts of interesting rumors…’”: Howard Doughty to Newton Arvin, September 20, 1946.
page 117 “‘What interesting rumors…’”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, September 23, 1946.
page 117 “‘LOST Probably in Manhattan…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, February 12, 1946.
page 118 “‘No third meal at all…’”: Newton Arvin diaries, September 7, 1946.
page 118 “‘I miss [Newton] most dreadfully…’”: TC to Howard Doughty, August, 1946.
page 118 “‘Truman was still writing Other Voices…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 119 “‘Newton was only interested…’”: Daniel Aaron to GC, April 21, 1983.
page 120 “‘I wish I knew…’”: Newton Arvin to Mary Louise Aswell, August 11, 1946.
page 120 “‘They looked like a father…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, May 7, 1977.
CHAPTER 16
page 121 “‘It is beautiful here, the weather…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, October 12 (or possibly 13), 1946.
page 121 “To Howard he wistfully observed…”: TC to Howard Doughty, late October 1946.
page 121 “‘He’s so stupid, Lyn…’”: Lyn White to GC, October 15, 1975.
page 122 “‘I thought that they had a wild…’”: Eleanor Friede to GC, October 1, 1975.
page 122 “She slapped his face during…”: Lyn White to GC, October 15, 1975.
page 122 “…and she engaged in affairs of her own…”: Seabon Faulk to GC, March 8, 1978.
page 122 “‘There was a tragic aura about Nina…’”: Michael Brown to GC, February 16, 1976.
page 122 “‘A day or so after she did it…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 123 “‘She was the most uptight person I’ve…’”: Harper Lee to GC, August 10, 1977.
page 123 “‘Nina, would you rather have a football player…’”: Lyn White to GC, October 15, 1975.
page 124 “…and prompted a delivery boy to scrawl…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 124 “‘T.C.—pale and tired-looking…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, September 6, 1946.
page 125 “‘Two calls from T.C.—one from 1060…’”: Newt
on Arvin’s diaries, October 27, 1946.
page 125 “‘I have changed addresses, have moved…’”: TC to John Malcolm Brinnin, early November 1946.
page 125 “‘Under no circumstances are you…’”: Ibid.
page 126 “‘Truman regards the trip to Brooklyn…’”: Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massee, November 5, 1946.
page 126 “‘It was a bizarre outfit then…’”: Eleanor Friede to GC, October 1, 1975.
page 126 “‘As Thoreau would say…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, October 15, 1946.
page 126 “‘Wonderful to see him…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, December 7, 1946.
page 128 “‘It distresses me unspeakably that things…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, October 26, 1946.
page 128 “‘I feel as if I were, indeed I am…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, August 22, 1946.
page 129 “‘When I first met him, Truman kissed me!’”: Daniel Aaron to GC, April 21, 1983
page 129 “‘When I want anybody to come to my…’”: Diana Trilling to GC.
CHAPTER 17
page 130 “‘After the war…’”: Gore Vidal to GC, November 30, 1975.
page 130 “‘The hunt for young authors…’”: Connolly, Ideas and Places, page 172.
page 131 “Life, which could bestow…”: “Young U.S. Writers,” Life, June 2, 1947.
page 131 “The day the issue appeared…”: Cerf, At Random, pages 224–25. (Cerf said that this incident occurred in 1948; as there was no such Life article in 1948, he must have meant 1947.)
page 131 “…they had printed two pictures…”: “LIFE Visits Yaddo,” Life, op. cit., page 111.
page 132 “‘the supreme metropolis of the present’”: Connolly, Ideas and Places, page 170.
page 132 “‘when the city of New York was still filled with a river light’”: Quoted by Jesse Kornbluth in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, October 21, 1979, page 104.
page 133 “‘an unforgettable picture of what a city ought to be…’”: Connolly, Ideas and Places, page 176.
page 133 “In a scene that was repeated…”: Phyllis Cerf Wagner to GC, January 17, 1978.
page 135 “‘I do things for Truman…’”: Barbara Long, “In Cold Comfort,” Esquire, June, 1966, page 126.
page 135 “William Goyen, a novelist…”: William Goyen to GC, December 13, 1976.
CHAPTER 19
page 144 “On Nantucket he wrote in bed…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, October 31, 1984.
page 145 “‘These last few pages!’”: TC to Robert Linscott, summer, 1947.
page 145 “He made ‘some small corrections…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, July 10, 1947.
page 145 “‘Truman’s little voice…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 145 “‘A difficult day…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, July 15, 1947.
page 146 “Isherwood was visiting…”: Christopher Isherwood to GC, November 21, 1975.
page 146 “…the storyteller who, in Somerset Maugham’s…”: Woolf, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Five, 1936–1941, page 185.
page 146 “…who breathlessly quizzed him…”: Bill Caskey, letter to GC, June 27, 1976.
page 146 “…still the ‘appreciative merry little bird…’”: Woolf, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, page 59.
page 147 “…remained ‘very much in…’”: Bill Caskey, letter to GC, June 27, 1976.
page 147 “‘I am uncontrollably eager…’”: Newton Arvin to Mary Louise Aswell, July 17, 1947.
page 147 “‘Very happy owing…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, August 23, 1947.
page 148 “‘Oh, my reputation…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 148 “‘To Blackie’s…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, November 23, 1947.
page 148 “‘I’m the only person of any sex…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 148 “‘the fabled Miss C’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 52.
page 149 “‘Still on the prowl for celebrities…’”: Lopez, Conversations with Katherine Anne Porter, page 251.
page 149 “‘[Truman’s] novel comes out…’”: Newton Arvin to Granville Hicks, December 20, 1947.
CHAPTER 20
I consulted and gained insight from several books and articles on Capote, his works, and Other Voices, Other Rooms in particular during the writing of this critical section on Capote’s first novel. Those most helpful to me were: Hassan, Radical Innocence; Goad, Daylight and Darkness, Dream and Delusion; Robert K. Morris, “Capote’s Imagery,” and Paul Levine, “Truman Capote: The Revelation of the Broken Image,” in Malin, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood; Nance, The Worlds of Truman Capote; Schorer, The World We Imagine.
page 150 “Other Voices, Other Rooms was an attempt to exorcise demons…”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 3.
page 153 “Noon City, for example, was called Cherryseed City…”: Original manuscript in Capote collection, Library of Congress.
page 153 “‘That is why the romance…’”: Quoted in Goad, Daylight and Darkness, Dream and Delusion, page 11.
page 154 “He was ‘bounding along like…’”: Doris Lilly, unpublished manuscript given to GC.
page 154 “‘There is a look…’”: Newton Arvin to TC, February 1, 1946.
page 155 “Booksellers reported…”: Selma Robinson; op. cit.
page 155 “Random House had scheduled…”: Ibid.
page 155 “and unsolicited bids…”: Roger Bourne Linscott, “On the Books,” New York Herald Tribune, January 11, 1948.
page 155 “‘Much lush writing…’”: Quoted by Dianne B. Trimmier in “The Critical Reception of Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms,” Philological Papers, West Virginia University Bulletin, Morgantown, West Virginia, June, 1970, page 95.
page 155 “‘The story of Joel Knox…’”: Carlos Baker, “Deep-South Guignol,” New York Times Book Review, January 18, 1948, page 5.
page 155 “‘Mr. Capote has concocted…’”: Richard McLaughlin, The Saturday Review of Literature, February 14, 1948, pages 12–13.
page 155 “‘[The book] is immature…’”:“Spare the Laurels,” Time, January 26, 1948, page 102.
page 155 “‘a deep, murky well…’”: “Other Books: ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms,’” Newsweek, January 26, 1948, page 91.
page 155 “‘A minor imitation…’”: Partisan Review, March 15, 1948, pages 374–77.
page 156 “‘Other Voices, Other Rooms abundantly…’”: Lloyd Morris, “A Vivid, Inner, Secret World,” New York Herald Tribune Book Review, January 18, 1948, page 2.
page 156 “‘It is impossible not to…’”: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, January 21, 1948, page 23.
page 156 “‘A short novel which is…’”: Kelsey Guilfoil, “Exotic Tale of Youth in Odd Setting,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, January 18, 1948, page 5.
page 156 “‘The clashing of characters…’”: Lon Tinkle, “New Young Novelist Makes Brilliant Debut,” Dallas News, January 18, 1948.
page 156 “‘a book of extraordinary literary…’”: Henry Butler, “‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ Expected to Win High Praise of Critics,” Indianapolis Times, January 17, 1948.
page 156 “He ‘is gifted, dangerously gifted…’”: Prescott wrote this in the Yale Review, spring, 1948. Quoted in Stanton, Truman Capote, page 35.
page 156 “James Gray, a syndicated critic…”: James Gray, “Louisiana Swamps Setting for Capote’s Fanciful ‘Other Voices,’” St. Paul Dispatch, January 16, 1948.
page 157 “One came from Newton…”: Newton Arvin to Granville Hicks, March 8, 1948, Granville Hicks Collection, University of Rochester.
page 157 “The second such comment came from Truman’s onetime mentor…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 158 “Other Voices almost immediately jumped…”: It first appeared on the best-seller list on February 15, 1948.
page 158 “It sold more than 26,000 copies…”: Random House record
s.
page 158 “One night while Truman…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 158 “Merle Miller, whose own novel…”: “People,” Time, March 15, 1948.
page 158 “Someone who signed himself…”: Selma Robinson, op. cit.
page 159 “columnist William Targ…”: William Targ, “Manhattan Letter,” Cleveland News, January 28, 1948.
page 159 “humorist Max Shulman…”: “Other Voices, Other Authors,” Time, May 3, 1948.
page 160 “‘Truman Capote has the critics…’”: Beaumont (Texas) Journal, February 1, 1948.
page 160 “‘You can’t go to any party…’”: Selma Robinson, op. cit.
page 160 “‘I couldn’t go to a…’”: Marguerite Young to GC, January 22, 1976.
page 160 “‘In 1948, cruising the…’”: Ozick, Art and Ardor, pages 85–86.
page 161 “‘I was so shocked and hurt…’”: TC in Newquist, Counterpoint, page 77.
page 161 “Interviewing him in late January…’”: Selma Robinson, op. cit.
CHAPTER 21
page 163 “If anyone pressed him…”: Selma Robinson, op. cit.
page 164 “…thousands of them—perhaps as many as 100,000…”: Flanner, Paris Journal, 1944–1965, page 86.
page 164 “‘You take good care…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 164 “‘Truman Capote is all the rage here…’”: Waldemar Hansen to John Bernard Myers, May 6, 1948.
page 165 “‘He looked like a child…’”: Lord (David) Cecil to GC, letter of October 22, 1976.
page 165 “‘He said that Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One…’”: Nicolson, Harold Nicolson, The Later Years, 1945–1962, page 140.
page 165 “‘I had it fixed in my head…’”: “Capote in the Lyons Den,” New York Post, early July, 1952.
page 166 “‘I was very impressed…’”: Waldemar Hansen to GC, September 7, 1983.
page 167 “‘Changing voices, changing rooms. Two dancing…’”: Waldemar Hansen to John Bernard Myers, June 13, 1948.
page 167 “‘The French loved the world…’”: Robbie Campbell to GC, April 24, 1977.