You begin to tell someone the story of your life and they come back at you with 'right? It's a book that could have been an important new chapter on Capote's life, revealing the intimate details of a fascinating relationship. Even writer Donald Windham, who has written widely about his own tremendous falling out with the "Tiny Terror," has a high regard for this book, praising Dear Genius for "showing us the Truman that we knew.
Dear Genius tries desperately to show us the Truman that his lover's personality can only struggle to know. So, finding so little red meat in Dunphy's bloodless book, I asked about the Capote the media had portrayed with a cruel honesty. The Public Broadcasting System, for example, recently aired an entry in its American Masters series which attempted in one hour to make sober sense of the late writer's tangled life.
The cinema verite style documentary was called "Unanswered Prayers," a pun on TC's seemingly unfinished novel of jet set scandal.
Who the hell can say that he didn't live a fulfilling life, with such beautiful books as he produced? That's why the so-called professionals won't appreciate my book on Truman. But why does he want to withhold so much information on Capote's life, I feel like asking, yet I can think only of the sad, sorry, almost grieving look on Dunphy's face during his own telecast appearance on "Unanswered Prayers. When Dunphy begins to talk during the documentary about the man he lived with for 30 years, the astute observer can see that it's a painful process for him, that in fact his eyes begin to well up with tears.
When I confronted him with that observation, Dunphy's reaction was as typical as it was immediate: he became very defensive, explaining that he was ashamed to be on the "damn thing, as I don't like TV, and if you saw tears there, as I said to George Plimpton, they were tears of shame from even being there. TV out-Hitlers anything Hitler ever did: it tells you what to do, what to buy.
Now I don't know. The late writer was a generous soul, as far as companion Dunphy was concerned. He deeded a house at Sagoponack, Long Island to him and, even more importantly, there were moments when, in the wild extravaganza that Capote's life became after In Cold Blood, especially in the 's, they shared many private, richly filled hours, in Manhattan, in Switzerland, and around the world. And again, when I asked Dunphy what Capote was like when he first met him, his reaction typified our conversation: he became immediately defensive and, sniped at me with comments like, "Well, you want me to tell you things you already know, or should know if you read the book.
Lee had just submitted her final manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbird to her publishing house and had ample time on her hands. Lee had long been fascinated by crime cases and had even studied criminal law before dropping out of school and moving to New York. Capote hired her, and the two made their way to Holcomb, Kansas, a few weeks later. Thanks to Lee, local residents, law enforcement and friends of the slain Clutter family opened their doors to the unlikely pair.
Each night, Capote and Lee retired to a small motel outside of town to go over the events of the day. Lee would eventually contribute more than pages of richly detailed notes, depicting everything from the size and color of the furniture in the Clutter home to what television show was playing in the background as the pair interviewed sources.
It would eventually sell more than 30 million copies and become a beloved classic. He nursed his envy for more than 20 years. Despite the tension, Lee continued to help Capote on the Clutter project, as he became increasingly obsessed with the case, developing relationships with the two men convicted and eventually executed for the crime. He had terrific kindness. The last time the two friends saw each other, Capote was on his way to New York City to catch a plane for Los Angeles.
Capote had been swimming every day for a week before he left, and the liver disease and phlebitis from which he had been suffering for years seemed under control.
Back on Long Island he recalls the morning when Capote walked into his living room and gave him a symbolic gift box topped by a paper butterfly that still rests on the mantel. FB Tweet More. You'll get the latest updates on this topic in your browser notifications.
But what really underpinned the mysterious, one-size-fits-one compatibility between the two men who began a year relationship that evening? The answer may lie on the pages of the further novels Dunphy would go on to write, which dealt lucidly and sensitively with human despair and loneliness.
Loneliness and an acute sense of displacement prompted in Truman the need to project a flamboyant personality, an endeavour usually underpinned by with copious alcohol.
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