Truman Capote and New York City

Edward Hopper's New York Movie, 1938

 My dad lent me Truman Capote's A Capote Reader in 2017. I was barely 18 years old, still consumed by a teenage angst, and - to be honest - not much of a reader. My interest in books and novels had waned significantly since starting Sixth Form, where the only few things I could find the time to focus on were video games and school assignments. A Capote Reader is a dauntingly large book, yet it presents itself in a very appealing way; it's a compendium of some of his earlier and finest short stories, travel sketches, novellas and essays, an assortment of magazine articles from a time long since past. Because of this, the stories are wonderfully easy to read and digest, the reader having the pleasure of being able to choose from the contents and read through a tale in a few hours at most. Only have 30 minutes available? The Diamond Guitar is perfect. A whole rainy day to spend inside? You can flip to Breakfast at Tiffany's and lose yourself for hours. The first short story of the book, Miriam, was one of Capote's first works, published in the June 1945 edition of Mademoiselle magazine. The first time I read it all those years ago, it struck a chord in me unlike most anything I'd read prior. It was unsettling; a bizarre thriller revolving around an elderly widow living on Manhattan's East Side. Her name is Miriam, and through the pages experiences several odd encounters with a little girl who shares the same name. Though beginning earnestly and innocently their relationship devolves into torment as the child takes advantage of the old lady, stealing her possessions and ransacking her abode. It is a tale of loneliness, set against the backdrop of mid-century winter New York. 

I read further on.

The Headless Hawk, an account of harrowing despair, fleeting romance, broken dreams, emptiness. The life and mind of a lonely Manhattan art gallery curator and his fleeting affair with a disturbed young girl. Further into Capote's work are the similarly dark yet intriguingly beautiful tales he became known for, spun in a similar vain. Master Misery (which I read in the Penguin mini classic First and Last) tells of troubled misfits struggling to find cash and fulfilment in the frozen streets of NYC. These stories are strange and sinister, they almost feel dreamlike in their delicate portrayal of unsettling encounters with strangers against this unchanging backdrop. In a sweet contrast that evokes daydreams of tree-lined avenues and piano Jazz, the writer's magnum opus Breakfast at Tiffany's is a gorgeous, humorous account of a closeted narrator's intrigue with an eccentric socialite, their relationship and the people who enter their lives. It brilliantly explores the trap of falling in love with the idea of a person as opposed to the person themselves, the melancholy of memories in hindsight and latching onto fantasies. The film based on this novella is, like most film adaptations, pretty dreadful. Yet the way in which Capote illustrates the city, specifically the Upper East Side, is absolutely wonderful; it's not just a setting but a consistent theme imperative to the story, without which the entire narrative would fall apart. When I read of his New York I can transport myself to this idyllic far away scene as if I'm leaping straight into an oil painting bursting with color, the wide avenues flanked with art deco skyscrapers thronging with life, cafés permeating the autumnal air with the rich scent of dark coffee, hues of deep orange and paling green blanketing Central Park's urban forest as little boats sit on the glistening water. A sweet Jazz melody flows from a brownstone's open window. The city that inspired the liked of Edward Hopper, Bill Evans, and Billie Holliday. A city that no longer exists. It's not difficult to understand how Capote fell in love with this flourishing cosmopolitan post-war metropolis and why it plays such an imperative role in his writing.

I by no means think that Capote's southern gothic style isn't 'as good' as his New York writing. Children on their Birthdays, A Jug of Silver, A Tree of Night; these all evoke a majestic image of quintessentially deep South society, weaving delicate stories that contrast the North and South without the need to be overt. However, the distinction between his fiction of the South and New York is palpable. The former possess a certain childlike wonder and mystique that obviously comes from Capote's adolescence in Louisiana, drawing inspiration from his well-known friendship with Harper Lee. They center on tales of youth and growth told from a semi-autobiographical and retrospective angle. Some, like My Side of the Matter, are comedically entertaining, and others like A Tree of Night are uncomfortably but vividly authentic. Whereas those focused the Empire city itself are far more adult, shattering the innocence that adolescence once had.
Truman Capote was a master of creating this very tangible world whatever the backdrop, and in only a handful of pages leaving a resonating effect on the reader. Themes of loneliness and uncertainty are found throughout. The struggle of being gay in a hostile culture, and the disillusionment of wealthy high society. The Americana that he loved, that gave him the inspiration to create, and that I will always have a fascination with.