Much of this book is based on interviews, chiefly with Truman Capote himself, but also with several hundred others who either knew him or provided information on him or on other subjects I discuss. In the notes below I have indicated my sources for key facts and quotations. I have cited all the important quotations from Truman that I obtained from published stories and interviews. The reader can assume that almost all other quotations from Truman and from his companion, Jack Dunphy, come from my interviews with them. Because I interviewed them so frequently, over so long a period of time, I have not attempted to date each quotation. With only a few exceptions, all other interviews are dated. For reasons that are obvious in the text, a very few people requested anonymity, which I granted.
The book is also based on written material, most of it unpublished: Truman’s books and articles; his letters, which are scattered over two continents; the letters of his friends, particularly his first lover, Newton Arvin; and the memoirs and diaries of those who knew him. Truman often claimed that he kept extensive diaries of his own. If so—and I doubt that he did—I know of only two. One is in the Library of Congress; the other he gave to me.
The two main repositories of Capote material are the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress. Columbia University’s Random House collection has the letters Truman exchanged with his editors, and the Smith College Library has many of the letters Newton Arvin wrote to him. Truman also gave me some important material, including the aforementioned diary and his letters from Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, the two killers he wrote about in In Cold Blood. I was also able to purchase an extraordinarily useful collection of several hundred of Truman’s family letters, which were of immense help in providing background and documenting dates.
In quoting from letters, I have, in a very few places, dropped irrelevant passages without noting the omission with an ellipsis, overuse of which I believe often slows down a narrative. For the most part, Truman and his correspondents were excellent spellers, and I have silently corrected minor misspellings, unless, as in a childhood letter, they make a point. When I have given the exact date of a letter within the text, I have not felt it necessary to repeat the citation in the source notes.
CHAPTER 1
page 3 “‘She like to have knocked me dead…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 4 “Her widowed mother had died…”: Arch Persons (September 9, 1976), Mary Ida Carter (September 7, 1976) and Seabon Faulk (March 8, 1978) to GC.
page 5 “‘Get out and don’t ever darken…’”: Mary Ida Carter to GC, September 7, 1976.
page 5 “He was obviously not the man he had led…”: Seabon Faulk to GC, March 8, 1978.
page 6 “‘People in Monroeville thought that Arch…’”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 2
page 8 “At the beginning, anyway, Lillie Mae put aside…”: Mary Ida Carter (September 7, 1976), Seabon Faulk (March 8, 1978) and John Knox Persons (September 9, 1978) to GC.
page 8 “‘If you could be sold, Arch…’”: Captain Verne Streckfus to GC, April 19, 1979.
page 10 “‘Money is the sixth sense, without which…’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, July 30, 1933.
CHAPTER 3
page 11 “‘She thought that she had been hooked…’”: Seabon Faulk to GC, March 8, 1978.
page 11 “‘She’d take a notion to a fellow…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 11 “In the seven years they were man and wife…”: Arch Persons to Mabel Purcell (his mother), January 5, 1933.
page 12 “‘Invariably,’ he complained in one letter…”: John Knox Persons to Sam Persons, July 12, 1931.
page 12 “The first on the list may have been…”: Arch Persons (September 9, 1976) and Joe Capote (May 7, 1977) to GC.
page 14 “In the winter of 1929 she even took him…”: Nancy H. Carwell, assistant to the registrar, Western Kentucky University, in a letter to GC, July 18, 1978.
CHAPTER 4
page 15 “‘She was the strongest woman…’”: Seabon Faulk to GC, March 8, 1978.
page 16 “‘Oh, Jennie that’s so sinful!’”: Mary Ida Carter to GC, September 7, 1976.
page 18 “In 1930, when Truman went there to live…”: For my description on Monroeville in the thirties, I relied on the centennial edition (1966) of the Monroe Journal and Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, as well as information derived from interviews.
CHAPTER 5
page 21 “All that summer of 1930 he swam…”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, July 24, 1930.
page 22 “‘He wore blue linen shorts that…’”: Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, page 13.
page 23 “‘I fear if there is such a thing…’”: Callie Faulk to Mabel Purcell, September 28, 1931.
page 23 “‘We give him every pleasure…’”: Callie Faulk to Mabel Purcell, August 3, 1932.
page 24 “One night at eleven o’clock, long after…”: Mabel Purcell to John Knox Persons, June 22, 1931.
CHAPTER 6
page 27 “‘Seems to me she is always studying something…’”: Sam Persons to John Knox Persons, January 15, 1931.
page 27 “‘Arch is headed for immediate serious trouble’”: John Knox Persons to Lillie Mae Faulk, March 11, 1931.
page 27 “‘Please excuse this paper…’”: Lillie Mae Faulk to John Knox Persons, March, 1931
page 28 “‘When he gets in trouble…’”: John Knox Persons to Lillie Mae Faulk, March 17, 1931.
page 29 “Captivated by her vivacity and beauty…”: Joe Capote to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 29 “‘I never saw a man who was any cleaner…’”: Seabon Faulk to GC, March 8, 1978.
page 30 “‘His mental state concerning her…’”: John Knox Persons to Sam Persons, July 2, 1931.
page 30 “‘The enclosed wire came last night…’”: Sam Persons to John Knox Persons, July 6, 1931.
page 31 “‘I am the deserted boy…’”: Arch Persons to Mabel Purcell, July 18, 1931.
page 32 “Lillie Mae, he reported, had phoned to tell him ‘that she…’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, August 27, 1931.
CHAPTER 7
page 34 “This time John put up bail, wryly remarking…”: John Knox Persons to Mabel Purcell, August 14, 1931.
page 34 “‘I am as innocent of wrongdoing…’”: Arch Persons to Mabel Purcell, August 30, 1932.
page 34 “‘Today is Truman’s birthday.…’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, September 30, 1932.
page 35 “The car was new, and Lillie Mae was ‘dressed to kill…’”: Sam Persons to John Knox Persons, October 25, 1932.
page 35 “…Alabama’s Angola State Prison—the toughest in the world…”: Arch Persons to Mabel Purcell, November 29, 1932.
page 35 “…that was enough to break even Sam’s heart…”: Sam Persons to Arch Persons, December 22, 1932.
page 35 “…to save Truman from that ‘she-devil’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, August 6, 1933.
page 36 “‘I have never appreciated any home as much…’”: Certified copy of testimony of “J. Archie Persons” in the Circuit Court of Monroe County, Alabama, August 24, 1933.
page 36 “‘I think it would be a calamity for the child…’”: F. W. Hare, Judge of the Circuit Court of Monroe County, August 28, 1933.
page 37 “‘I didn’t know a man could be robbed…’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, September 2, 1933.
page 37 “Yet even Arch’s mother…”: Mabel Purcell to John Knox Persons, September 10, 1933.
page 37 “‘We have the goods on her…’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, April 29, 1934.
page 38 “‘Can you imagine anything so terrible…’”: Arch Persons to John Knox Persons, July 24, 1934.
page 38 “‘As you know my name was changed…’”: TC to Arch Persons, undated, probably September, 1936.
CHAPTER 8
page 40 “‘They were madly in love…’”: Lyn White to GC, October 16, 1975.
page 41 “‘I will not have another child…’”: Marjorie Capote (Joe Capote’s widow) to GC, January 7, 1983.
page 41 “Something went wrong on the operating table…”: Joe Capote to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 42 “She often accused him of lying…”: Ibid.
page 42 “According to his Aunt Tiny, Nina’s sisters…”: Marie (Tiny) Rudisill to GC, June 27, 1982.
pages 42–3 “‘His voice today is identical to…’”: C. Bruner-Smith to GC, November 19, 1982.
page 44 “‘I always felt sorry for Truman…’”: Ibid.
page 45 “‘How could she have been so insane…’”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 9
page 47 “‘It was fascinating to watch him…’”: Howard Weber, Jr., to GC, June 3, 1980.
page 50 “His ninth-grade English teacher…”: John Lasher to GC, January 19, 1983.
page 50 “‘It was a rather lengthy manuscript…’”: C. Bruner-Smith to GC, November 19, 1982.
page 51 “‘Those who knew him accepted him…’”: Crawford Hart, Jr., to GC, January 20, 1983.
page 51 “‘Truman was vividly…’”: Thomas Flanagan to GC.
page 52 “‘His attendance was very irregular…’”: Andrew Bella to GC, July 19, 1983.
page 53 “He came to her attention as aggressively…”: Catherine Wood to GC, December 19, 1975.
CHAPTER 10
page 55 “‘He had a great, and immense, capacity…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 55 “‘Truman brought happiness into…’”: Marion Jaeger O’Niel to GC, April 2, 1983.
page 56 “All that day he walked the halls…”: Marion Jaeger O’Niel and Lucia Jaeger Behling to GC, April 2, 1983.
page 61 “‘a shot here, a shot there,’ as he later said”: Joe Capote to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 61 “Occasionally he would spend a Saturday…”: Carl Jaeger to GC, April 2, 1983.
page 62 “‘You’re a pansy!’ Nina would…”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 63 “‘Well, my boy’s a fairy…’”: Ibid.
page 63 “‘How can you let your son…’”: Meghan Robbins Collins to GC, January 31, 1983.
page 64 “‘As much as Truman could be in love…’”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 11
page 67 “‘Goodbye, girls, I’m going back to the city…’”: Lucia Jaeger Behling to GC, April 2, 1983.
page 68 “‘In New York,’ said Phoebe…”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 68 “‘this island, floating in river water like a diamond iceberg…’”: TC. The Dogs Bark, page 30.
page 68 “‘We thought we were being terrific…’”: Carol Marcus Matthau to GC, May 31, 1977.
page 69 “…in a poem, ‘Sand for the Hour Glass,’…”: Franklin School magazine, The Red and Blue, Winter, 1943, pages 23–24.
page 70 “‘The New Yorker is a worse madhouse…’”: White, Letters of E. B. White, page 250.
page 71 “‘like a small boy, almost a child.’”: William Shawn to GC, May 31, 1976.
page 71 “‘You’re going to lose your money…’”: Ebba Jonnson to GC, January 24, 1977.
page 72 “‘She was a wicked, wicked woman…’”: Andy Logan to GC, June 7, 1976.
page 72 “‘It’s in his stars, or his destiny…’”: Selma Robinson, “The Legend of ‘Little T,’” P.M., Sunday Magazine, March 14, 1948, page 8.
page 73 “‘baying the moon of despair…’”: Thurber, The Years with Ross, page 176.
page 73 “‘The copyboy’s job was to clean the place…’”: Albert Hubbell to GC, August 12, 1983.
page 74 “‘He used to stand behind my desk…’”: Barbara Lawrence to GC, August, 1976.
page 75 “‘There was a tendency—New Yorker snobbery…’”: E. J. Kahn, Jr., to GC, September 7, 1983.
page 75 “‘Even though we thought that he could probably do it…’”: William Shawn to GC, May 31, 1976.
page 75 “‘It is a scandal that we didn’t publish any of Truman’s short stories…’”: Brendan Gill to GC, August 8, 1983.
page 76 “‘It just so happened,’ Truman said, ‘that I was recovering from the flu…’”: Elliot Norton, “Fable Drawn from Life,” New York Times, March 23, 1952, Arts section, page 3.
page 77 “‘Truman came home crying…’”: Joseph Capote to GC, May 7, 1977.
CHAPTER 12
page 79 “‘It was early winter when I arrived there…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 6.
page 79 “‘He seemed happy-happy…’”: Mary Ida Carter to GC, September 7, 1976.
page 79 “‘More and more,’ he wrote, ‘Summer Crossing seemed to me thin…’”: Ibid., page 6.
page 80 “‘noisy as a steel mill…’”: Ibid., page 8.
page 81 “‘He couldn’t paint worth a damn…’”: Patsy Streckfus Clark to GC, November, 1977.
page 81 “‘the freest time of my life…’”: Andrea Chambers, “Going Home,” People, January 26, 1981, page 56.
page 82 “‘There were extraordinary people…’”: Richard Avedon to GC, August 7, 1976.
page 83 “‘That’s fine, little boy…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 85 “‘I saw “Miriam” in Mademoiselle…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, December 17, 1975.
page 86 “‘Harper’s and Mademoiselle turned into temples…’”: Alfred Chester, “American Gothic: A Powerful, Enigmatic and Troubling Account of Murder in the Nth Degree,” New York Herald Tribune Book Week, January 16, 1966, page 2.
page 86 “‘The most remarkable new talent of the year was…’”: Brickell, O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1946, page xiv.
CHAPTER 13
page 88 “‘George had pipit monstrosities in his head…’”: Leo Lerman to GC, May 5, 1976.
page 88 “‘George had the nastiest tongue…’”: Pearl Kazin Bell to GC, August 10, 1976.
page 88 “…his friend W. H. Auden called him…”: Irving Drutman to GC, February 8, 1978.
pages 88–9 “‘Knowing George was a career in itself…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 89 “‘George brought out the worst in Truman…’”: Pearl Kazin Bell to GC, August 10, 1976.
page 90 “‘The people George knew were a legion…’”: Howard Moss to GC, December 18, 1976.
page 90 “he even declared that Truman’s ‘slender talent’…”: Letter from Paul Bigelow to Jordan Massee, March 25, 1947.
page 90 “A decade later…”: Drutman, Good Company, pages 113–14.
page 90 “‘It was spectacular in a truly Truman way…’”: Leo Lerman to GC, May 5, 1976.
page 91 “‘Nina sometimes became rather violent…’”: Ibid.
page 91 “‘He knew without a doubt the precise moment…’”: Pearl Kazin Bell, “The Jester,” Bottegbe Oscure, Volume 9, 1952, page 282.
page 92 “‘You knew exactly what you were going to get there…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 92 “‘Little T can be absolutely adorable…’”: Selma Robinson, op. cit., pages 6–8.
page 93 “‘Carmel and Diana Vreeland were both fascinated…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, May 7, 1977.
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…’”: Newton 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 records.
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.
page 167 “‘It’s very hard to describe what Paris…’”: Gore Vidal to GC, May 3, 1972.
page 168 “‘Truman gave me very good advice…’”: Waldemar Hansen to GC, September 7, 1983.
page 168 “The tabloid France-Dimanche…”: Letter from Lin Emery to GC, September 18, 1977, and letter from Georges Tardy to GC, November 7, 1977.
page 168 “‘You don’t haul your friends…’”: Karl Bissinger to GC, May 4, 1976.
page 169 “‘The other day at Natalie Barney’s…’”: Toklas, Staying On Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, page 128.
page 169 “An elderly Frenchwoman of formidable presence…”: Francis Steegmuller, “Meet Jenny Bradley, a Literary Force Extraordinary,” New York Times Book Review, December 11, 1960, page 5.
page 169 (“‘Ah, poor Marcel…’”): Jenny Bradley to GC, November 19, 1978.
page 169 “‘I can see Truman now…’”: Ibid.
page 169 “Miss Barney also had…”: See Wickes, The Amazon of Letters; Herbert R. Lottman, “In Search of Miss Barney,” New York Times Book Review, September 18, 1969, page 2; Meryle Secrest, “Writer Natalie Barney Dies,” Washington Post, February 7, 1972; Secrest, Between Me and Life.
page 171 “When he was growing up, Jacksonville…”: Frederick Fouts to GC, January 19, 1985.
page 171 “‘…about the most beautiful boy anybody had ever seen…’”: Jimmy Daniels to GC, 1976.
page 172 “Adding his own distinctive colors…”: Glenway Wescott to GC, January 31, 1976.
page 172 “‘He invented himself…’”: John B. L. Goodwin to GC, August 20, 1976.
page 172 “‘His handsome profile was…’”: Isherwood, Down There on a Visit, pages 193–94.
page 173 “‘He thought that the world…’”: Bill Harris to GC, May 19, 1976.
page 174 “‘Our disturbing friend just called…’”: TC to Waldemar Hansen, mid-June, 1948.
CHAPTER 22
page 175 “He arrived from Paris…”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, page 15.
page 175 “‘For him Venice was Harry’s Bar…’”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, pages 18–19.
page 176 “‘An enchanted, infinitesimal village…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 71.
page 176 “He and Donald chose…”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, page 23.
page 176 “‘Peaches precious…’”: TC to Donald Windham, August 3, 1948.
page 177 “‘It was right that I had gone to Europe…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 71.
page 177 “Truman had met Tennessee…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 178 “‘Aren’t you allowing yourself…’”: Tennessee Williams to Carson McCullers, July 5, 1948.
page 178 “Truman and Tennessee were together…”: Williams, Memoirs, pages 150–51.
page 178 “…that night’s television news…”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, pages 25–26.
page 179 “…he was, as Newton phrased it in his diary, ‘much distressed’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, August 12, 1948.
page 179 “Four days later he added…”: Newton Arvin to Howard Doughty, August 6, 1948.
page 180 “…Truman was subdued and sober”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, August 18, 1948.
page 180 “‘You and your Andrew’”: Howard Doughty to Newton Arvin, July 23, 1948.
page 180 “‘My very dearest Newton’”: Andrew Lyndon to Newton Arvin, undated, spring or summer, 1948.
page 181 “‘Come over, Andrew’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 182 “Holding his three-hundred-dollar prize money…”: TC to Donald Windham, undated, August, 1948.
page 183 “‘Honey, these cuff buttons…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 184 “Two weeks later he recorded…”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, November 7, 1948.
page 184 “‘Sad but also tender…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, February 6, 1949.
page 185 “…charged with being ‘a lewd…’”: Edward Kosner, New York Post, September 4, 1960, page 5.
page 186 “‘Day of the Avalanche’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, September 2, 1960.
page 186 “‘All your friends are…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, September 6, 1960.
page 186 “…delicately, and rather disarmingly…”: TC to Newton Arvin, October 2, 1960.
page 186 “‘He panicked and ratted…’”: Lillian Hellman to GC, April 1, 1981.
page 186 “Writing to his friend Daniel Aaron…”: Quoted in Arvin, American Pantheon, page xvii.
CHAPTER 23
page 188 “Jack happened to be at Leo’s…”: Leo Lerman to GC, May 5, 1976.
page 189 “‘Good Lord! Who wasn’t there?’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 189 “‘Truman told me he wanted me…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 190 “‘My God! You’d think I sold…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, September 15, 1954.
page 190 “‘He had a terrible temper…’”: Olive Daley to GC, August 13, 1979.
page 190 “When his favorite son…”: Olive Daley and Gloria Dunphy to GC, August 13, 1979.
page 191 “‘All the little good in me…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, October 10, 1959.
page 191 “‘Poverty is much more than a…’”: from The Schoolteacher, an unpublished novel by Jack Dunphy.
page 192 “‘When she came to the audition…’”: Agnes de Mille to GC, March 14, 1985.
page 193 “‘Hollywood was screaming for her…’”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 24
page 195 “He was, in his own words, almost hysterical…”: Williams, Tennessee Williams’ Letters to Donald Windham, page 237.
page 196 “‘I think you judge Truman a bit…’”: Ibid.
page 196 “When Jack Warner, who was…”: Williams, Memoirs, page 168.
page 196 “‘What a strange, and strangely…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, April 1, 1949.
page 196 “To Cecil Beaton, with whom, during…”: TC to Cecil Beaton, March 25, 1949.
page 197 “Auden, who had rented a house nearby, extolled…”: Auden, Collected Poems, page 416.
page 198 “‘I am happy that Summer Crossing…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, April 6, 1949.
page 198 “…early in May he was pleased to report…”: TC to Robert Linscott, May 6, 1949.
page 198 “‘Silly goose that I am…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, March 25, 1949.
page 198 “‘Truman was wrapped around him…’”: Williams, Tennessee Williams’ Letters to Donald Windham, page 237.
page 198 “‘I am attending to my work…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, May 1, 1949.
page 199 “In a letter to Carson, Tennessee described the arrival…”: Tennessee Williams to Carson McCullers, June 18, 1949.
page 199 “They traveled in an exuberant…”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, June 7, 1949.
page 199 “that ‘ragamuffin city…’”: TC to Donald Windham, August 30, 1949.
page 199 “‘Come to the dock with me…’”: Bowles, Without Stopping, page 291.
page 200 “‘Rhymes with horror…’”: Williams, Tennessee Williams’ Letters to Donald Windham, page 228.
page 200 “‘I don’t care how hot…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, August 30, 1949.
page 200 “Cecil Beaton, who arrived in August…”: Beaton, The Strenuous Years, page 49.
page 200 “A leader of her claque was Tennessee…”: Williams, Memoirs, page 159.
page 201 “…who wore blue jeans and brown golf shoes…”: Herbert, Second Son, page 124.
page 201 “‘Everything,’ she wrote a friend…”: Dillon, A Little Original Sin, page 182.
page 201 “The best picture of Tangier…”: William Bird, “Eight Powers and a Casbah,” New York Herald Tribune, June 12, 1949, page 58; Joachim Joesten, “Cinderella City,” The Wall Street Journal, December 24, 1951, page 1; “Boom Town,” Fortune, April, 1948.
page 201 “…the days slid by…”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 88.
page 202 “Despite that adolescent display…”: Beaton, The Strenuous Years, pages 49–50.
page 202 “‘One day Truman outlined for us…’”: Paul Bowles, letter to GC, March 1, 1976.
page 202 “Two weeks later he confirmed…”: TC to Robert Linscott, September 12, 1949.
page 202 “‘Well, at any rate,’ he said…”: Beaton, The Strenuous Years, page 55.
page 203 “He reminded Price’s secretary…”: Judith Jones to GC, March 2, 1976.
page 203 “Interviewing him then…”: René Brest, “Avec Truman Capote à Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” newspaper unknown.
page 204 “‘One thing I want to be sure of…’”: Frank Price to GC, February 20, 1976.
page 204 “Yet he was also bored with traveling…”: TC to John Malcolm Brinnin, November 6, 1949.
page 204 “Brinnin met him at the airport…”: Brinnin, Sextet, pages 46–49.
CHAPTER 25
page 206 “New York, Truman had told…”: René Brest, op. cit.
page 206 “‘The most richly embroidered legend…’”: Charles J. Rolo, “The New Bohemia,” Flair, February, 1950, page 118.
page 206 “‘Truman, the little monkey…’”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, December 10, 1947.
page 207 “Knowing how such attention…”: Ruth Ford to GC, September 1, 1976.
page 208 “‘I am pleased that Faulkner…’”: TC to William Goyen, December 16, 1950.
page 209 “‘Maybe it seems strange…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, March 20, 1951.
page 209 “…Linscott was enormously…”: William Goyen to GC, December 13, 1976.
page 210 “It was in that square…”: Donald Windham to GC, March 10, 1977.
page 210 “D. H. Lawrence had lived and enjoyed…”: Aldington, Portrait of a Genius, but…, page 223.
page 210 “‘We have had luck, at least…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, May 7, 1950.
page 210 “A stone shack was what…”: Beaton, The Strenuous Years, pages 159–60.
page 211 “‘It is very like living…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, pages 105–6.
page 211 “A girl in her late teens…”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, July 8, 1950.
page 211 “‘He is good-looking…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 115.
page 211 “‘You don’t believe in…’”: Ibid.
page 212 “Eugene O’Neill showed up…”: TC to Donald Windham, April 18, 1951.
page 212 “At Truman’s request, Richard Brooks…”: Richard Brooks to GC, April 30, 1977, Los Angeles.
page 212 “‘Such a newsy letter…’”: TC to Pearl Kazin, May 5, 1951.
page 212 “The Cerfs, on the other hand…”: TC to Phyllis and Bennett Cerf, April 10, 1951.
page 213 “‘It’s SO educational…’”: Ibid.
page 213 “‘It is terribly quiet…’”: TC to William Goyen, April 15, 1950.
page 213 “‘But why are you going…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, May 20, 1950.
page 213 “‘Pearl lamb,’ he wrote…”: TC to Pearl Kazin, June 21, 1950.
page 214 “‘Honey, why are you…’”: TC to Pearl Kazin, October 8, 1950.
page 214 “‘Truman was one of the kindest…’”: Pearl Kazin to GC, August 10, 1976.
page 214 “‘She telephoned me and…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 215 “‘At least the great chest-pounding…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, October, 1950.
page 215 “‘Dear God, I am 26’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, October 30, 1950.
page 215 “Horan’s relationship with the two composers…”: Gruen, Menotti, pages 51–59.
page 216 “Devastated by the downward turn…”: Robert Horan to GC, April 24, 1977.
page 216 “‘The rest of the story is just too…’”: TC to William Goyen, January 19, 1951.
page 216 “‘Have been going through a terrible…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, December 26, 1950.
page 217 “‘Little things keep coming at me…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, January 10, 1951.
CHAPTER 26
page 219 “‘It is very real to me…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, October, 1950.
page 220 “‘I hope this book will be half-worth…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, October 30, 1950.
page 220 “‘WONDERFUL WONDERFUL…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, September 15, 1950.
page 220 “‘There is a perfection…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, September 18, 1950.
page 220 “‘Rumor has it that you…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, January 16, 1951.
page 220 “‘I adore every word of the novel…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, April 17, 1951.
page 221 “…as daunting as Mount Everest or Kilimanjaro”: TC to Pearl Kazin, April 1, 1951.
page 221 “‘A great deal depends on…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, April 24, 1951.
page 221 “…a ‘kind of slave anguish’”: TC to Robert Linscott, May 3, 1951.
page 221 “‘Oh Bob, I do hope…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, June 4, 1951.
page 221 “‘I’m relieved that it’s…’”: TC to Donald Windham, June 4, 1951.
page 221 “‘You are no doubt indignant…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, June 22, 1951.
page 222 “‘In our opinion, the book…’”: Bennett Cerf to TC, June 22, 1951.
page 222 “‘I cannot endure it that…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, June 27, 1951.
page 223 “‘The test of whether or not…’”: TC, quoted in Cowley, Writers at Work, page 187.
page 223 “‘We must be on our guard…’”: Flaubert, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, page 180. (I have joined two sentences from the same letter without using an ellipsis.)
page 224 “‘If only I were a writer…’”: TC to Donald Windham, September 8, 1959.
page 224 “‘HAVE READ PROOFS…’”: TC to Bennett Cerf, July 9, 1951.
page 224 “‘If it is now in the form…’”: Bennett Cerf to TC, July 10, 1951.
page 224 “Truman’s second novel, said the Sunday New York Herald Tribune…”: Gene Baro, “Truman Capote Matures and Mellows,” New York Herald Tribune Book Review, September 30, 1951, page 4.
page 224 “Orville Prescott in the daily…”: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, October 2, 1951, page 25.
page 224 “‘Within the slim compass…’”: Richard Hayes, review of The Grass Harp, The Commonweal, October 26, 1951, pages 73–74.
page 224 “‘All books today are far…’”: Rochelle Girson, “This Week’s Personality,” Roanoke (Virginia) Times, September 30, 1951. (Probably syndicated.)
CHAPTER 27
page 225 “‘Tell me, darling, do you…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, May 8, 1951.
page 225 “‘The transposition of one art form…’”: TC, “Faulkner Dances,” Theatre Arts, April, 1949, page 49.
page 225 “‘more broke than Little Orphan Annie’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, February 29, 1952.
page 226 “‘I think I do like to work…’”: Cyrus Durgin, “Truman Capote Talks of His First Play, ‘The Grass Harp,’” Boston Sunday Globe, March 2, 1952.
page 227 “‘I have been working so hard…’”: TC to Gloria Dunphy, January 6, 1952.
page 227 “‘Well,’ he told a reporter who…”: Harvey Breit, “Talk with Truman Capote,” New York Times, February 4, 1952.
page 227 “‘Isn’t it extraordinary about George Davis…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, August 26, 1951.
page 227 “…a ‘topflight production…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, December 4, 1951.
page 228 “Saint, taking the recommendation of an experienced…”: Saint Subber to GC, August 12, 1975.
page 228 “‘Between us, he has a certain vulgarity…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, January 5, 1952.
page 228 “Invited to the final rehearsal…”: Virgil Thomson to GC, October, 1975.
page 228 “Cecil’s tree was even more impressive…”: “Record-Sized Tree ‘Grows’ at Martin Beck,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 23, 1952, page 29.
page 228 “By comparison, commented…”: Ibid.
page 228 “In Lewis’ eyes, that was…”: Lewis, Slings and Arrows, page 224.
page 229 “‘Tell y’what,’ Truman said…”: Ibid., page 223.
page 229 “Back in New York before…”: Paul Bigelow to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 229 “Early on opening night…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 229 “When the curtain had descended…”: William Goyen to GC, December 13, 1976.
page 230 “‘Out of good impulses…’”: Brooks Atkinson, “First Night at the Theatre,” New York Times, March 28, 1952, page 26.
page 230 “‘Seeing The Grass Harp is like…’”: Walter F. Kerr, “The Theaters,” New York Herald Tribune, March 28, 1952, page 12.
page 230 “Thomson blamed…”: Virgil Thomson to GC, October 27, 1976.
page 230 “Lewis faulted…”: Lewis, Slings and Arrows, pages 222–25.
page 230 “Saint accused…”: Saint Subber to GC, August 12, 1975: Ibid.
CHAPTER 28
page 231 “‘Well, here we are back in Taormina…’”: TC to Pearl Kazin, June 9, 1952.
page 231 “‘There are two long…’”: Jack Dunphy to Mary Louise Aswell, May 21, 1952.
page 231 “‘We could not get Fontana…’”: TC to Donald Windham, May 29, 1952.
page 231 “‘She adores Jack—but is…’”: TC to Gloria Dunphy, December 25, 1952.
page 232 “‘It seems all so much…’”: TC to Donald Windham, August 4, 1952.
page 232 “‘When one of them seizes me…’”: Show of the Month News, March or April 1952, page 3.
page 232 “The actors at the Martin Beck…”: Associated Press report of April 26, 1952; carried in the Kansas City Star, April 27, 1952, under headline, “Gals in for the Colors.”
page 232 “By the time he returned home after Christmas…”: TC to Robert Linscott, September 7, 1952.
page 232 “‘Sometimes I wish…’”: TC to Gloria Dunphy, December 25, 1952.
page 232 “‘Had a two-page cable…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, July 12, 1952.
page 233 “‘I rather fear he…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, August, 1952.
page 233 “‘We decided to spend the winter…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, October 5, 1952.
page 233 “Mary Louise, who was still…”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, October 14, 1952.
page 234 “Actually, Truman had been offered…”: TC to Cecil Beaton, November 8, 1952.
page 234 “‘Capote will be rich…’”: Jack Dunphy to Mary Louise Aswell, November, 1952.
page 235 “‘David absolutely adored him…’”: Jennifer Jones to GC, November 22, 1975.
page 235 “‘Indiscretion is, for the…’”: “Cinema,” Time, April 26, 1954, page 11a.
page 237 “A few weeks after Truman finished…”: M. A. Schmidt, “Battling Bogart’s Saga,” New York Times, September 6, 1953.
page 237 “Hearing of their dilemma, Selznick…”: Selznick, Memo from David O. Selznick, page 462.
page 238 “‘Nobody was prepared for the entrance…’”: John Barry Ryan to GC, January 31, 1976.
page 238 “‘He wrote it page by page…’”: Morley and Stokes, Robert Morley, page 231.
page 238 “‘Truman had to go back to…’”: Ibid.
page 238 “‘I swear his face was twice…’”: John Huston to GC, December 18, 1975.
page 239 “‘When I started, only John and I…’”: Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., “Movies: Unusual Collaboration,” New York Herald Tribune, February 7, 1954.
page 239 “‘I always wanted to know where…’”: Jennifer Jones to GC, November 22, 1975.
page 240 “‘it was a hell of a lark…’”: Paul V. Beckley, “Nothing, Says Huston, Can Be ‘More Trivial,’ “New York Herald Tribune, August 30, 1953.
page 241 “‘Why, honey, what’s wrong…’”: Snow with Aswell, The World of Carmel Snow, page 183.
page 241 “As a demonstration of the company’s…”: Jack Clayton to GC, August 30, 1976.
page 241 “‘[It] ended with John Huston and Humphrey Bogart…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, May 14, 1953.
page 241 “‘This is such a slight, tiny picture…’”: Archer Winsten, “John Huston in Slippers,” New York Post, September 4, 1953.
page 241 “‘Personally if you don’t see this picture…’”: Hyams, Bogie, page 135.
page 242 “…Newton walked out…”: Newton Arvin’s diaries, April 5, 1954.
page 242 “‘However antic and loopy the circumstances…’”: Charles Champlin, “Look Back,” Millimeter, December, 1975, page 56.
CHAPTER 29
page 243 “‘Fortunately,’ said Noël Coward…”: Coward, The Noël Coward Diaries, page 218.
page 243 “‘I need to write short stories…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, May 20, 1953.
page 243 “‘I wish so much I could talk…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, August 3, 1953.
page 244 “‘Naturally, my advice would be to…’”: Robert Linscott to TC, August 10, 1953.
page 244 “‘I’ve been working with zombie-like…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, October 16, 1953.
page 245 “‘You take your life into your hands…’”: Mary Louise Aswell to GC, May 7, 1977.
page 245 “‘I’ve always wanted to know him…’”: Glenway Wescott to GC, January 30, 1976.
page 246 “‘The other night Greta Garbo…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, August, 1953.
page 248 “‘Cecil’s perfect manners become…’”: Jack Dunphy to Paul Cadmus, September 14, 1962.
page 249 “‘Perhaps the world’s second worst…’”: Albin Krebs, “To Bore Was a Crime,” New York Times, January 19, 1980, page 28.
page 249 “‘They considered themselves small-town boys…’”: a nonattributed source to GC, May 2, 1983.
page 249 “‘I respect and trust you…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, November 8, 1952.
page 249 “‘I admire you as a man…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, May 15, 1956.
page 249 “‘We are now each other’s best friend…’”: This is from an August, 1953, entry in Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diaries, which his biographer, Hugo Vickers, was kind enough to show me. In most cases I have relied on Beaton’s unpublished diaries rather than those that appeared in print after much polishing and cutting. In a few instances, however, Beaton’s handwriting defied me, and I was forced to turn to the published volumes.
page 249 “‘He had very long toenails…’”: Sir John Gielgud to GC, June 23, 1983.
page 249 “‘We discussed our beliefs…’”: Beaton, The Strenuous Years, page 162.
page 250 “‘I am working, but not well…’”: Jack Dunphy to Mary Louise Aswell, November, 1953.
page 250 “‘stem to stern,’ as he told…”: TC to Newton Arvin, November 20, 1953.
page 251 “‘This is your friend from across…’”: TC to GC.
page 251 “At Carson’s insistence…”: Carr, The Lonely Hunter, page 412.
page 251 “‘My youth is gone…’”: Ibid., page 413.
CHAPTER 30
page 252 “In fact, the clouds had been long…”: For the background on Joe Capote’s legal problems I am indebted to his lawyer Nathan Rogers, whom I interviewed on June 21, 1978. I also relied on various New York State court documents, including Indictment No. 4195–54, December 21, 1954; Joe Capote’s plea before Judge Jacob Gould Schurman, Jr. (Court of General Sessions of the County of New York), January 5, 1955; the statement of Nathan Rogers to the Probation Office, January 27, 1955; and the record of sentencing, March 28, 1955.
page 253 “‘We’ll come back either broke…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 253 “‘Everything would be fine…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, June 19, 1953.
page 253 “‘Odd, I seem to think about money…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, October 16, 1953.
page 253 “‘Do call her…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 253 “Eleanor Friede, who had lunch…”: Eleanor Friede to GC, October 1, 1975.
page 253 “A few days before New Year’s…”: Seabon Faulk to GC, March 8, 1978.
page 254 “‘When the night maid came…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, January 6, 1954.
page 255 “‘Truman’s in the back…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 255 “‘I’m a Jew…’”: Ibid.
page 255 “‘People don’t ask for a drink…’”: Mary Ida Carter to GC, September 7, 1976.
page 256 “‘Well, I’ll eventually find out…’”: Harper Lee to GC, August 10, 1977.
page 256 “‘I don’t think Truman has ever written…’”: Phoebe Pierce Vreeland to GC, April 20, 1976.
page 256 “‘You know, Lyn, my mother loved…’”: Lyn White to GC, October 16, 1975.
page 256 “‘You’re not my father…’”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 257 “‘He told me that he had been…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 257 “‘Truman is having a bad time…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, June 16, 1954.
page 257 “…on March 30 he entered Sing Sing…”: A letter of August 29, 1985 to GC from James E. Sullivan, Superintendent, and George McGrath, Program Coordinator, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Ossining, New York.
CHAPTER 31
page 259 “There was a setback in February…”: Jablonski, Harold Arlen, page 184.
page 259 “Every day when he visited Arlen…”: Ibid.
page 260 “‘We used to work three hours…’”: Harold Arlen to GC.
page 260 “‘Brook is a very creative force…’”: Nance, The Worlds of Truman Capote, page 129.
page 261 “‘When he was through, it was a mambo!’”: Geoffrey Holder to GC, September 5, 1985.
page 261 “‘Tell me, how do you handle…’”: Lucia Victor to GC, September 5, 1985.
page 262 “‘What am I doing wrong?…’”: Ibid.
page 262 “‘Before I left London, somebody…’”: John Barry Ryan to GC, January 31, 1976.
page 262 “‘When Pearl walked out, Peter…’”: Lucia Victor to GC, September 5, 1985.
page 262 “‘Peter’s ego was such that…’”: D. D. Ryan to GC, January 31, 1976.
page 263 “‘The first act was very good…’”: Harold Arlen to GC.
page 263 “‘Mr. Capote has run out of…,’”: Walter F. Kerr, “House of Flowers,” New York Herald Tribune, December 31, 1954.
page 263 “‘It’s one of those shows in which…’”: Hobe, “House of Flowers,” Variety, January 12, 1955.
page 263 “‘I don’t know what’s happening…’”: Shirley Herz to GC, September 4, 1985.
page 264 “The last show was a sellout…”: Jablonski, Harold Arlen, page 195.
CHAPTER 32
page 267 “‘Sat on the stone wall and…’”: TC, “A Gathering of Swans,” Harper’s Bazaar, September, 1959, pages 122–25.
page 268 “‘He would tell me things…’”: Carol Marcus Matthau to GC, August 15, 1985.
page 268 “‘We were once in Copenhagen…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, March 21, 1985.
page 269 “‘By the time you get this…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, June 21, 1956.
page 271 “Andrew was present when he received his first…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, April 23, 1977.
page 272 “He liked to show off the detective…”: Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy, page 106.
page 272 “‘I keep thinking what power…’”: Jacqueline Kennedy to TC, August 26, 1963.
page 272 “‘Dear Truman, thank you for thinking…’”: Jacqueline Kennedy to TC, December 12, 1964.
page 272 “‘All the times of insouciance…’”: Jacqueline Kennedy to TC, June 22, 1968.
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page 279 “‘The beautiful darling!’ her father…”: Thomson, Harvey Cushing, page 227.
page 279 “‘So great is her beauty that…’”: Baldwin, Billy Baldwin Remembers, page 142.
page 279 “Her mother was no less ambitious…”: “The Cushing Sisters,” Life, August 11, 1947, pages 41–44; Graham, How to Marry Super Rich, pages 224–33.
page 279 “‘society’s three fabulous Cushing sisters…’”: Nancy Randolph, “It’s a CBS Heir at Bill Paley’s,” New York Daily News, March 31, 1948.
page 280 “‘immaculate quality and immense serenity’”: Enid Nemy, “Barbara Cushing Paley Dies at 63, Style Pace-Setter in Three Decades,” New York Times, July 7, 1978.
page 281 “He met the Paleys…”: Jennifer Jones to GC, November 22, 1975.
page 281 “‘There’s great beauty in his face…’”: “‘In Cold Blood’… An American Tragedy,” Newsweek, January 24, 1966, page 63.
page 282 “‘He had a passion to identify…’”: Oliver Smith to GC, December 18, 1985.
page 282 “‘[Truman’s] opened up avenues…’”: “‘In Cold Blood’…,” Newsweek, op. cit.
page 283 “When he created the little park…”: Tony Schwartz, “An Intimate Talk with William Paley,” New York Times, December 18, 1980, page 14.
page 284 “From early manhood…”: Halberstam, The Powers That Be, page 421.
page 284 “‘I don’t think I am a very easy…’”: Paley, As It Happened: A Memoir, page 2.
page 284 “Once, recalled Christopher Isherwood…”: Christopher Isherwood to GC, November 21, 1975.
page 287 “‘Babe made a mistake…’”: Interview with a friend of the Paleys.
page 288 “‘Greedy for happiness, I asked nothing…’”: Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Volume I, Swann’s Way, page 140.
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page 289 “‘How many of you would be…’”: Irving Drutman to GC, February 8, 1978.
page 289 “‘Dear Mr. Jack,’ he said…”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, June, 1955.
page 289 “‘Now, true to my word…’”: TC to Robert Linscott, July 10, 1955.
page 290 “All bundled up, ‘he looked…’”: Marilyn Putnam to GC, January 8, 1986.
page 290 “Writing later, he said that he imagined…”: TC, The Dogs Bark, preface, page xvii.
page 291 “When she had read Other Voices…”: Nancy Ryan Brien to GC, September 8, 1977.
page 292 “‘I think it only fair to point out…’”: Kenneth Tynan, “Elfin Eavesdropper,” The Observer (London), June 23, 1957.
page 292 “‘Laugh, you dreary people…’”: Leonard Lyons, “The Lyons Den,” New York Post, July 16, 1966
page 292 “One day Breen was talking…”: Wilva Breen to GC, January 3, 1986.
page 292 “That night Nancy found them sprawled…”: Nancy Ryan Brien to GC, September 8, 1977.
page 293 “Describing Boris to Newton…”: TC to Newton Arvin, August 14, 1958.
page 293 “In Moscow he addressed the Soviet…”: Bernard D. Nossiter, “Author Capote Finds Russia…, “New York Herald Tribune, February 26, 1956.
page 294 “Looking back, he said, ‘The Muses Are Heard…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark.
page 294 “In one case, he even invented…”: Nancy Ryan Brien to GC, September 8, 1977.
page 294 “Lyons, who felt most wounded…”: Leonard Lyons, op. cit.
page 295 “‘wicked, witty and utterly devastating’”: “Sterling North Reviews—Truman Capote in Darkest Russia,” New York World-Telegram and The Sun, November 9, 1956.
page 295 “‘He was very keen on keeping his line…’”: Guggenheim, Out of This Century, page 348.
page 295 “‘You would adore it…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, June 21, 1956.
page 296 “‘In some part of his nature he was…’”: Oliver Smith to GC, December 18, 1985.
page 297 “‘We’re very excited,’ he wrote Mary Louise…”: Jack Dunphy to Mary Louise Aswell, May 28, 1956.
page 297 “‘Home! And happy to be…’”: TC, The Dogs Bark, page 149.
page 297 “‘I love Brooklyn Heights,’ he told…”: Wriston Locklair, “Writer Truman Capote Likes, Adds to Heights ‘Local Color,’” Brooklyn Heights Press, October 17, 1957, page 1.
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page 298 “Shortly after New Year’s, 1957, Warner Brothers…”: The background on the filming of Sayonara and the various disputes between Truman and the moviemakers I found in Joshua Logan’s Movie Stars, Real People, and Me, pages 93–121; Truman’s diaries of his Asia journey, which are in the Library of Congress; and Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diaries.
page 299 “‘It treated human beings like bugs…’”: Logan, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me, page 101.
page 299 “‘His assurance is deep-seated…’”: Cecil Beaton’s diaries, undated, January, 1957.
page 301 “‘Bless Jesus I don’t live there…’”: TC’s diaries, January 20, 1957.
page 301 “‘A delightful city of wide avenues…’”: TC’s diaries, January 21–28, 1957.
page 301 “‘Am intrigued,’ he wrote…”: Ibid.
page 301 “‘Don’t let yourself be left alone with Truman…’”: Logan, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me, page 106.
page 302 “‘What an experience,’ Truman wrote…”: TC’s diaries, undated, early February, 1957.
page 302 “In his journal, Truman added his own poignant…”: Ibid.
page 302 “‘Oh, you were so wrong…’”: Logan, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me.
page 303 “‘Here, of course, is the inevitable communication…’”: Marlon Brando to TC, May 16, 1957.
page 303 “Walter Winchell said it was…”: “Walter Winchell of New York,” New York Daily Mirror, November 24, 1957.
page 303 “‘I’ll kill him!’”: Logan, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me, page 120.
page 303 “‘Thank you for writing this piece…’”: William Shawn to TC, October 31, 1957.
page 304 “‘Went to a small boite to see…’”: TC’s diaries, February 12–15, 1957.
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page 306 “‘As he had been there before, Truman…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, September 24, 1975.
page 306 “‘I am really three thousand years…’”: Curtis Cate, “Isak Dinesen,” The Atlantic, December, 1959, page 152.
page 307 “‘Time has reduced her to…’”: TC with Avedon, Observations, page 142.
page 307 “‘He’s a nice chap and…’”: Vickers, Cecil Beaton, page 456.
page 307 “‘I read several versions…’”: Phyllis Cerf Wagner to GC, January 17, 1978.
page 308 “‘I used to get these lists…’”: Alice Morris to GC, January 3, 1976.
page 308 “‘“I’m not going to change…”’”: Ibid.
page 308 “‘I’m not angry, I’m outraged…’”: “Newsmakers,” Newsweek, June 2, 1958, page 44.
page 308 “Truman’s friend Irving Drutman…”: Irving Drutman to GC, February 8, 1978.
page 309 “‘Have written you from many places…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, undated, summer, 1958.
page 309 “To Cecil he added…”: TC to Cecil Beaton, June 18, 1958.
page 309 “‘A large novel, my magnum opus’”: TC to Bennett Cerf, September 29, 1958.
page 310 “Many aphorisms have been falsely attributed…”: For guidance on the works of Saint Teresa of Avila, I am indebted to a noted Saint Teresa scholar and translator of her works, Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., of the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts.
page 310 “A former showgirl and the daughter of…”: Life provided a long account of the Woodward killing in its issue of November 14, 1955, beginning page 35. In addition I consulted numerous newspaper stories from the time.
page 310 “‘I said I was happy…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, July 16, 1958.
page 311 “‘Have learned only five Greek words…’”: TC to Donald Windham, August 18, 1958.
page 311 “‘When I reached it,’ Jack told…”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, undated, September, 1958.
page 311 “‘The whole notion opens vistas…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, July 16, 1958.
page 312 “‘My Birthday,’ he noted…”: TC’s diaries, September 30, 1958.
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page 313 “In an early version, Truman…”: The early versions of Breakfast at Tiffany’s are in the Capote collection of the Library of Congress.
page 314 “Shortly after it appeared, Doris Lilly…”: Andrew Lyndon to GC, January 7, 1984.
page 314 “Unfortunately, a Manhattan woman…”: Paul Berg, “$800,000 Suit Over a Best Seller,” Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 1, 1959, “Pictures,” page 3.
page 314 “‘It’s ridiculous for her to claim…’”: “Golightly at Law,” Time, February 9, 1959, page 90.
page 314 “‘Truman Capote I do not know well…’”: Mailer, Advertisements for Myself, page 465.
page 315 “Mailer had good reason to call him…”: Janet Winn, “Capote, Mailer and Miss Parker,” The New Republic, February 9, 1959, pages 27–28.
page 315 “…he told Cecil that it was ‘wonderful, big…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, June 12, 1959.
page 315 “‘Your item about Leland and Pam…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, July 15, 1959.
page 315 “In New York, Bennett Cerf told Truman…”: Bennett Cerf to TC, August 3, 1959.
page 316 “‘There was much talk about what is…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, August 24, 1959.
page 316 “‘What possible trouble or disaster…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, September 24, 1975.
page 316 “After finishing forty pages of his Moscow…”: William Shawn to GC, May 31, 1976.
page 317 “‘I like the feeling that something is happening…’”: Phyllis Meras, “Writing Isn’t Therapeutic for Capote,” Providence Sunday Journal, July 19, 1959, page W–14.
page 317 “He was too restless to settle down to fiction…”: Glenway Wescott to GC, January 31, 1976, and February 9, 1976.
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Much of the background for the In Cold Blood chapters was provided by In Cold Blood itself.
page 318 “The truth, as Henry James…”: James, The Art of the Novel, page 159.
page 318 “‘Everything would seem freshly minted…’”: George Plimpton, “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel,” New York Times Book Review, January 16, 1966.
page 319 “‘As he originally conceived it…’”: William Shawn to GC, May 31, 1976.
page 319 “‘He said it would be a tremendously…’”: “‘In Cold Blood’… An American Tragedy,” Newsweek, January 24, 1966, page 60.
page 319 “‘Did you read about the murder…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, December 3, 1959.
page 319 “‘I don’t know a soul…’”: Cerf, At Random, page 192.
page 319 “‘He was afraid that there wouldn’t be…’”: Harper Lee to GC, March 2, 1986.
page 321 “‘he was like someone coming off the…’”: Ibid.
page 321 “‘Well… I’d sure hate to tell…’”: Robert Pearman, “Reaction to Capote Book Varies at Scene,” Kansas City Times, January 27, 1966.
page 321 “Soon after arriving, he and Nelle walked into the office…”: Alvin Dewey to GC, October 25–26, 1976.
page 321 “‘Well he could have talked all day…’”: Ibid.
page 322 “‘Nelle walked into the kitchen…’”: Dolores Hope to GC, October 28, 1976.
page 322 “‘It wasn’t like he was interviewing you…’”: Wilma Kidwell to GC, October 26, 1976.
page 323 “At one particularly bleak point, he despaired…”: Harper Lee to GC, March 2, 1986.
page 323 “‘Of course Truman dominated the…’”: Dolores Hope to GC, October 28, 1976.
page 323 “…when his wife, Marie, who had been born…”: Marie and Alvin Dewey, October 25–26, 1976.
page 326 “‘He saw Truman as someone like himself…’”: Donald Cullivan to GC, February 27, 1986.
page 327 “‘I had one of the worst childhoods…’”: Harper Lee to GC, August 10, 1977.
page 327 “‘He was suspicious, like many people…’”: Donald Cullivan to GC, February 27, 1986.
page 327 “Perry was deeply offended by…”: Ibid.
page 328 “‘An extraordinary experience, in many ways the most…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, January 21, 1960.
page 328 “How had he been greeted…”: Glenway Wescott to GC, January 31, 1976.
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page 329 “Indeed, as Dick Avedon…”: Richard Avedon to GC, August 7, 1976.
page 330 “‘It is really too awful…’”: TC to Donald Cullivan, July 15, 1960.
page 331 “‘[It] may take another year or more…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, undated, probably July, 1960.
page 332 “‘Whether it is worth doing…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, October 3, 1960.
page 332 “‘Never thought that I, of all writers…’”: TC to Donald Windham, October 17, 1960.
page 332 “‘Alas, I am rather too much involved…’”: TC to Newton Arvin, November 9, 1960.
page 333 “‘I’ll think 3 times before…’”: TC to Donald Windham, August 12, 1960.
page 333 “‘Every once in a while friends of Truman’s…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, undated, August, 1960.
page 333 “‘It was sometimes embarrassing to hear…’”: Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diary, May, 1960.
page 333 “It was cold, dark and raining…”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, November 4, 1960.
page 334 “Freud, who learned to enjoy canine…”: Clark, Freud, The Man and the Cause, pages 483–84.
page 334 “‘Last week we found out Bunky…’”: TC to Donald Windham, undated, early January, 1961.
page 334 “‘He did it in the most unbelievable…’”: Jack Clayton to GC, August 30, 1976.
page 334 “‘A beautifully turned film…’”: Paul V. Beckley, “The Innocents,” New York Herald Tribune, December 26, 1961, page 9.
page 334 “‘Oh how glorious it seems…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, February 10, 1961.
page 335 “‘Today I stood in back of…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, January 22, 1961.
page 335 “‘Is there a pet shop here?…’”: Beaton, The Restless Years, pages 127–28.
page 335 “‘an extraordinary and terrible experience…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, February 8, 1962.
page 336 “‘Somehow they, it, the whole thing…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, February 25, 1962.
page 336 “‘Of course they all arrived back…’”: Jack Dunphy to Paul Cadmus, May, 1962.
page 336 “Truman added that the Corsicans…”: TC to Donald Windham, June 3, 1962.
page 336 “‘by a lady-in-waiting in the form of…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, July 26, 1962.
page 336 “Gloria had warned her future Number Four…”: Wyatt Cooper to GC, January 6, 1976.
page 336 “‘Well, Gloria has come and gone…’”: TC to Marie and Alvin Dewey, August 3, 1962.
page 337 “‘bedded down with my book…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, October 15, 1962.
page 337 “The lunch, in honor of the Queen Mother…”: Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diary, November, 1962.
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page 339 “‘I have been rising every morning…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, February 4, 1963.
page 340 “‘I need a rest from my book…’”; TC to Cecil Beaton, February 28, 1963.
page 340 “‘The staple of life is certainly…’”: Daniel Aaron, introduction to Arvin, American Pantheon, intro. page xvii.
page 341 “‘If only I could empty my soul…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, February 4, 1963.
page 342 “‘Eventually it began to own him…’”: Phyllis Cerf Wagner to GC, January 17, 1978.
page 341 “‘He spoke the way he wrote…’”: D. D. Ryan to GC, February 23, 1976.
page 342 “‘Well, should I?’”: Harper Lee to GC, August 10, 1977.
page 342 “‘My wife Blanche…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 342 “‘I was in London last week…’”: TC to Mabel Purcell, December 14, 1962.
page 344 “‘Amigo mio, I have…’”: Perry Smith to TC, June 26, 1963.
page 344 “‘I have your picture with Charlie…’”: Perry Smith to TC, June 30, 1963.
page 344 “‘I like talented personalities…’”: Perry Smith to TC, January 19, 1964.
page 345 “‘This kind of literature is only degenerating…’”: Perry Smith to TC, October 6, 1963.
page 345 “‘P. has another “madon” at me…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, January 1, 1964.
page 345 “‘Forty two months without exercise…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, September 15, 1963.
page 345 “‘I doubt if hell will have me…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, September 8, 1963.
page 345 “‘At times it seems forty years…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, April 5, 1964.
page 346 “‘My hair line, at my forehead…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, September 20, 1964.
page 346 “‘My concern is that the info, you have…’”: Perry Smith to TC, January 29, 1964.
page 346 “‘What is the purpose of the book?’”: Perry Smith to TC, April 12, 1964.
page 346 “In a nine-page letter, Dick…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, January 25, 1964.
page 347 “With his usual thoroughness, he looked up…”: Perry Smith to TC, June 4, 1964.
page 347 “‘My Dear Friend,’ he said…”: Perry Smith to TC, November 24, 1964.
page 347 “‘Well, the fat’s in…’”: Richard Hickock to TC, January 28, 1965.
page 347 “‘April 14 you know is the date…’”: Perry Smith to TC, March 18, 1965.
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page 348 “…in 1962 Newsweek had even run a…”: “Romance with Reality,” Newsweek, February 5, 1962, page 85.
page 349 “‘The house is divine…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, undated, probably July, 1963.
page 349 “‘I am in a really appalling state…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, September 17, 1963.
page 349 “To Cecil’s gratification, Truman heartily endorsed…”: Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diaries, November, 1963.
page 350 “‘I had so much to say & discuss…’”: Perry Smith to TC, November 24, 1963.
page 350 “He took Donald Windham…”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, pages 71–72.
page 350 “‘I really have been feeling very low…’”: TC to Marie and Alvin Dewey, January 18, 1964.
page 350 “‘Go on with your work…’”: Jack Dunphy to TC, January 20, 1964.
page 350 “‘No, I want to be at least…’”: Jack Dunphy to TC, January 25, 1964.
page 351 “The Deweys, Sandy noted in his diary…”: These references are from Sandy Campbell’s unpublished diaries, which he very kindly allowed me to see.
page 352 “‘That you really liked my book…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, November 22, 1964.
page 352 “Newsweek, which sent a reporter…”: “The Fabulist,” Newsweek, December 28, 1964, pages 54–55.
page 352 “‘It wasn’t a question of my liking…’”: Jane Howard, “How the ‘Smart Rascal’ Brought It Off,” Life, January 7, 1966, page 72.
page 352 “‘As you may have heard…’”: TC to Mary Louise Aswell, January 21, 1965.
page 352 “‘I’m finishing the last pages…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, January 27, 1965.
page 353 “‘Hope this doesn’t sound insane…’”: TC to Sandy Campbell, February 2, 1965.
page 353 “‘And I thought: yes, and I hope…’”: TC to Marie and Alvin Dewey, February 9, 1965.
page 353 “‘He was incredibly tense and unable to really talk…’”: Joe Fox to GC, January 20, 1976.
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page 355 “‘Perry and Dick were executed…’”: TC to Donald Cullivan, April 17, 1965.
page 355 “‘Bless Jesus,’ he exclaimed…”: TC to Cecil Beaton, June 16, 1965.
page 357 “Only a writer ‘completely in control…’”: George Plimpton, “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel,” New York Times Book Review, January 16, 1966, page 2.
page 357 “‘Journalism,’ he said, ‘always moves along on a…’”: Gloria Steinem, “A Visit with Truman Capote,” Glamour, April, 1966.
page 357 “‘An author in his book…’”: Flaubert, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, page 173.
page 357 “‘I built an oak and…’”: Granville Hicks, “The Story of an American Tragedy,” Saturday Review, January 22, 1966, page 37.
page 358 “‘immaculately factual,’ Truman publicly boasted…”: George Plimpton, op. cit.
page 358 “‘One doesn’t spend…’”: Ibid.
page 358 “A man from the Kansas City Times…”: Robert Pearman, “Reaction to Capote Book Varies at Scene,” op. cit.
page 358 “…he described Holcomb ‘as a broken-down place…’”: “‘In Cold Blood’…”: Newsweek, op cit., page 61.
page 358 “…Truman did give way to a few small…”: Alvin Dewey and Wilma Kidwell to GC, October 26, 1976.
page 360 “…the four issues broke the magazine’s record…”: “The Country Below the Surface,” Time, January 21, 1966, page 83.
page 360 “…and crowds waiting at a pier…”: Johnson, Charles Dickens, page 304.
page 360 “‘They evidently didn’t…’”: Dodge City Globe; quoted in Books, November, 1965, page 12.
page 360 “‘Drug stores say…’”: “New Yorker Demand Hits City; Magazine Doesn’t.” Garden City Telegram, September 29, 1965.
page 361 “‘It’s tremendous,’ said Harold Nye…”: Harold Nye to TC, September 29, 1965.
page 361 “Leo Lerman grumbled…”: Leo Lerman to TC, October 10, 1965.
page 361 “…Truman’s Greenwich High School…”: Catherine Wood to TC, September 30, 1965.
page 361 “‘I suppose you will have imitators…’”: Catherine Wood to TC, October 19, 1965.
page 361 “‘I would never have believed…’”: James Merrill to TC, November 10, 1965.
page 361 “Anita Loos adjudged…”: Anita Loos to TC, November 16, 1965.
page 361 “Noël Coward, who confessed…”: Noël Coward to TC, December 21, 1965.
page 362 “‘Such a deluge of words…’”: William D. Smith, “Advertising: A Success Money Didn’t Buy,” New York Times, February 20, 1966.
page 362 “By a peculiar stroke of luck…”: Louis Sobel and Jack O’Brian, “Otto Preminger Bopped: O’Brian-Sobel Are There,” New York Journal-American, January 8, 1966.
page 362 “‘L’Affaire “21,”’ as one newspaper…”: New York Journal-American, January 9, 1966.
page 363 “‘I would like to take…’”: William D. Smith, op. cit.
page 363 “‘I’m mad about the new Capote…’”: “Capote Story of Kansas Murders ‘Upgrades’ Publishing Industry,” Books, November, 1965, page 1.
page 363 “‘A boy has to hustle his book…’”: “‘In Cold Blood’…”: Newsweek, op. cit., page 63.
page 363 “‘A Book in a New Form…’”: Harry Gilroy, “A Book in a New Form Earns $2-Million for Truman Capote,” New York Times, December 31, 1965.
page 363 “‘When you average it out…’”: Ibid.
page 363 “‘In Cold Blood is a masterpiece…’”: Conrad Knickerbocker, “One Night on a Kansas Farm,” New York Times Book Review, January 16, 1966.
page 364 “He had recorded ‘this American tragedy…’”: Maurice Dolbier, “In-Depth Report on Brutal Crime in Rural Setting,” New York Herald Tribune, January 14, 1966.
page 364 “Rebecca West, who had produced…”: Rebecca West, “A Grave and Reverend Book,” Harper’s, February, 1966, page 108.
page 364 “Writing in The New York Review…”: F. W. Dupee, “Truman Capote’s Score,” The New York Review of Books, February 3, 1966, page 3.
page 364 “‘It is ridiculous in judgment…’”: Stanley Kauffmann, “Capote in Kansas,” The New Republic, January 22, 1966, page 19.
page 364 “But his diatribe was itself…”: “In Hot Blood, Kauffmann-Capote Reaction,” The New Republic, February 5, 1966, pages 36–37.
page 364 “For Truman the congenial atmosphere was ruined…”: Articles reprinted in Tynan, Tynan Right and Left.
page 365 “Jimmy Breslin, the street-smart columnist…”: “Jimmy Breslin, In Cold Blood,” New York Herald Tribune, January 19, 1966, page 21.
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page 366 “‘I’ve gotten rid of the boy…’”: “‘In Cold Blood’… An American Tragedy,” Newsweek, op. cit., pages 62–63.
page 367 “…in what a fashion columnist called ‘the most…’”: Eugenia Sheppard’s column, New York Herald Tribune, October 2, 1965.
page 367 “‘He wanted to be in the thick…’”: Oliver Smith to GC, December 18, 1985.
page 367 “…walking into it, he wrote in…”: “Truman Capote Describes His…,” House Beautiful, April, 1969, page 94.
page 368 “‘Garden City Opens Arms…’”: Elvira Valenzuela, “Garden City Opens Arms to Capote,” Wichita Eagle, April 23, 1966.
page 368 “‘His light and somewhat nasal…’”: Harry Gilroy, “Truman Capote Wins Applause as Reader in Town Hall Session,” New York Times, May 6, 1966, page 53.
page 368 “‘In the eye of the daily…’”: Virginia Sheward, “Capote Reading Capote: Poignant Evening,” Newsday, May 6, 1966.
page 368 “‘It was a very moving moment…’”: Ibid.
page 369 “‘Have not had a genuine holiday…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, June 20, 1966.
page 369 “‘Serious writers aren’t supposed to make…’”: “People,” Time, August 5, 1966, page 34.
page 369 “‘I think it was something a little boy…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, September 24, 1975.
page 370 “‘Truman,’ she said, ‘I haven’t…’”: Eleanor Friede to GC, October 1, 1975.
page 371 “‘I don’t know whether or not I should invite…’”: Ibid.
page 371 “Leo Lerman joked that ‘the guest book reads…’”: “Modern Living,” Time, December 9, 1966, page 88.
page 371 “Jerome Robbins, the choreographer…”: Gloria Steinem, “The Party,” Vogue, January, 1967, page 50.
page 372 “‘Now, honey,’ he told her…’”: Katharine Graham to GC, October 30, 1985.
page 372 “‘Truman wouldn’t give them to me all…’”: Ibid.
page 373 “She was vacationing on Cape Cod…”: Ibid.
page 373 “‘I’ve never seen women putting…’”: Eugenia Sheppard, “Capote Has a Hot Idea,” New York World-Telegram, October 18, 1966.
page 374 “But he did not send one to his aunt…”: Marie Rudisill to GC, June 27, 1982.
page 374 “‘I feel like I fell into…’”: “Modern Living,” Time, December 9, 1966, page 88.
page 374 “‘People were really carrying on…’”: Diana Trilling to GC.
page 374 “Hearing the commotion from her house in Nyack…”: Jordan Massee to GC, February 16, 1977.
page 375 “‘He ordered his friends…’”: Glenway Wescott to GC, February 9, 1976.
page 375 “‘Oh, I like Truman…’”: Glenway Wescott to TC, October 8, 1966.
page 375 “Flanner asked Glenway to drop Truman…”: Janet Flanner to Glenway Wescott, October 14, 1966.
page 375 “‘Piping away like Blake’s little…’”: Glenway Wescott to Janet Flanner, October 20, 1966.
page 376 “‘This city’s normally…’”: Leroy Aarons, “Capote Is Cold Blooded to the Uninvited Masses,” Washington Post, November 25, 1966.
page 376 “When Herb Caen…”: Herb Caen, “A Supertruman Effort,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 2, 1966.
page 376 “‘The ladies have killed me…’”: Enid Nemy, “…And Before It All Started,” New York Times, November 29, 1966.
page 376 “‘I think I’ve lost my mind…’”: Ibid.
page 376 “Arriving that afternoon, Kay Graham…”: Katharine Graham to GC, October 30, 1985.
page 377 “As the Caens were leaving…”: Herb Caen, “A Supertruman Effort,” op. cit.
page 377 “…it appeared that Pamela Hayward might have been right…”: “Modern Living,” Time, December 9, 1966, page 88.
page 378 “‘It’s too early to tell how…’”: Charlotte Curtis, “Capote’s Black and White Ball: The Most Exquisite of Spectator Sports,” New York Times, November 29, 1966, page 53.
page 378 “‘It was formidable vraiment…’”: Jack Dunphy to Mary Louise Aswell, February 9, 1967.
page 379 “Pete Hamill wrote an outraged column…”: Pete Hamill, “The Party,” New York Post, November 29, 1966.
page 379 “A soldier in an Army training camp…”: Private Charles Rosner, “Viewed from the Barracks,” Time, December 23, 1966, page 12.
page 379 “‘So Truman Capote had a blast…’”: Richard Waterman, “His Turn in the Barrel,” Time, January 6, 1967.
page 379 “A few days later Russell Baker…”: Russell Baker, “Observer: Truman Capote’s Gift to Literature,” New York Times, December 8, 1966, page 46.
page 380 “‘He did it. He did it…’”: Suzy Knickerbocker’s column, New York World-Journal-Telegram, November 29, 1966.
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page 381 “‘You might say Truman Capote…’”: Toni Kosover and Ki Hackney, “Capote Does It Again,” Women’s Wear Daily, May 7, 1968.
page 381 “‘his name has a magic ring…’”: Enid Nemy, “Capote Magnetism Fills New ‘House,’” New York Times, January 24, 1968.
page 381 “‘Anything he does…’”: Ibid.
page 381 “‘There’s a little secret to charity…’”: Ibid.
page 382 “‘Somebody has got to tell Truman…’”: Suzy Knickerbocker, “A Grand Party for a Wonderful Cause,” New York Journal-Telegram, April 26, 1967.
page 382 “Writing in Vogue, he said, ‘Ah, the Princess!’”: TC, “Lee, A Fan Letter from Truman Capote,” Vogue, June, 1976, page 113.
page 382 “‘He’s my closest friend…’”: Lee Radziwill to GC, February 6, 1976.
page 382 “‘gold-brown like a glass…’”: TC, “Lee, A Fan Letter,” op. cit.
page 383 “…an exceedingly comfortable life…”: Christine Kirk, “Starring Lee Bouvier,” New York Sunday News, June 18, 1967.
page 383 “‘Understand her marriage is all but finito…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, February 9, 1962.
page 383 “The irate husband of his longtime lover…”: Stassinopoulos, Maria Callas, page 252.
page 383 “‘Does the ambitious Greek tycoon…’”: Ibid.
page 384 “‘Oh, Jackie, it would be such fun…’”: Ibid.
page 384 “Lee’s reward for bringing them together…”: Martin, A Hero for Our Times, page 533.
page 385 “Many people in Finney County, including the editor…”: Editorials: “Not for the Community,” Garden City Telegram, May 26, 1986.
page 386 “‘When the young actress who was portraying Nancy…’”: “A Nightmare Lived Again,” Life, May 12, 1967, page 104B.
page 386 “‘You’re not happy.’”: Richard Brooks to GC, April 30, 1977.
page 386 “Two weeks later Life…”: “A Nightmare Lived Again,” Life, op. cit.
page 387 “He persuaded Milton Goldman…”: Milton Goldman to GC, June 12, 1986.
page 387 “‘I feel absolutely nothing in common…’”: Jane Howard, “Girls Who Have Everything Are Not Supposed to Do Anything,” Life, July 14, 1967, page 56.
page 388 “…looked like ‘a dog’s lunch…’”: Ibid.
page 388 “‘I have a feeling of now or never…’”: Ibid.
page 388 “…pronounced them ‘very promising…’”: Ibid.
page 388 “When he returned to Manhattan…”: Mark Shivas, “‘Laura’—In Blue Blood,” New York Times, January 14, 1968, page D17.
page 389 “…Susskind discarded Van Druten’s comedy…”: Matt Messina, “News Around the Dials,” New York Daily News, August 18, 1967, page 64.
page 389 “‘I wish we could begin tomorrow…’”: Lee Radziwill to TC, August 19, 1967.
page 389 “‘When I want advice…’”: Ibid.
page 389 “‘I was so happy to get…’”: Lee Radziwill to TC, September 19, 1967.
page 389 “…Susskind insisted that ‘there is something…’”: Mark Shivas, op. cit.
page 389 “…her Laura ‘was reduced to a stunning…’”: Jack Gould, “Cashing In on Crashing Bores,” New York Times, February 4, 1968.
page 389 “‘only slightly less animated…’”: “Specials,” Time, February 2, 1968, page 57.
page 390 “‘When that check fell out…’”: Arch Persons to TC, August 22, 1967.
page 390 “‘He is now the No. 1 writer…’”: Arch Persons to Truman Moore, August 16, 1967.
page 390 “‘Where I was dumb…’”: Arch Persons to TC, August 21, 1967.
page 391 “‘Now in my four years of isolation…’”: Ibid.
page 391 “‘You must of course realize…’”: Arch Persons to TC, August 22, 1967.
page 391 “‘I would like also for you…’”: Ibid.
page 391 “‘It is hardly necessary for me…’”: Arch Persons to TC, August 21, 1967.
page 391 “‘Should we call her Princess…’”: Frank Perry to GC, January 5, 1976.
page 392 “Holding Lee’s hand—as if he were still a child…”: Edith Efron, “When Truman Capote Came Home Again,” TV Guide, November 23, 1968, page 22.
page 392 “‘Marvelous!’” he exclaimed”: Ibid.
page 392 “‘Truman’s relatives just wouldn’t integrate…’”: Eleanor Perry to GC, January 29, 1976.
page 392 “…whom he called ‘that bastard…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 392 “‘Don’t you never think…’”: Ibid.
page 392 “‘I think he’s going to marry…’”: Eleanor Perry to GC, January 29, 1976.
page 393 “‘Lee, I hope that you’ll work it out…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 393 “‘I think you used very poor taste…’”: Ibid.
page 393 “Four years later, after losing…”: Ibid.
page 393 “‘He had that Jew lawyer…’”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 45
page 397 “‘He never really recovered…’”: Phyllis Cerf Wagner to GC, January 17, 1978.
page 398 “…or, as Forster phrased it…”: Forster, A Passage to India, page 149.
page 398 “‘…how he longed for praise…’”: Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diaries, May, 1960.
page 398 “Truman never forgave an insult…”: “Holly and Hemlock: Truman Capote Lists the Books He Will Give His Friends for Christmas,” Washington Post Book World, December 1, 1968, page 2.
page 399 “Maloff had good reason to regret the day…”: “Letters,” Washington Post Book World, January 19, 1969.
page 400 “‘No words can express the secret agony…’”: Priestley, Charles Dickens, page 12.
page 402 “‘When I first knew him…’”: Phyllis Cerf Wagner to GC, January 17, 1978.
page 402 “‘This phenomenon’ Cecil had once…”: Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diaries, summer, 1953.
page 402 “‘I secretly feel T. is in a bad state…’”: Cecil Beaton’s unpublished diaries, April, 1966.
CHAPTER 46
page 404 “‘If an idea is really haunting you…’”: Show of the Month News, March or April, 1952, page 3.
page 405 “‘I aspire,’ he had jotted in a…”: TC, Music for Chameleons, page 250.
page 406 “He might have said, as Flaubert did…”: “‘Thank You for Making Me Read Tolstoy’s Novel’—The Letters of Flaubert and Turgenev,” New York Times Book Review, October 27, 1985, page 51.
page 406 “…he had sold movie rights…”: A. H. Weiler, “Capote’s ‘Prayers’ Are Answered,” New York Times, February 18, 1968.
page 407 “‘I have a strange new friend…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, fall, 1967.
page 407 “‘Write when you can…’”: Nancy Reagan to TC, mid-November, 1967.
page 407 “At the end of December…”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, pages 86–94.
page 407 “‘Whatever changes have been made…’”: Clive Barnes, “Theater: ‘House of Flowers’ Rebuilt,” New York Times, January 29; 1966.
page 407 “The show closed after only fifty-seven…”: “‘House of Flowers’ Closing; ‘Private Lives’ to Be Given,” New York Times, March 14, 1968.
page 407 “…the usually genial Arlen…”: Harold Arlen to GC.
page 408 “…a reporter for West Magazine…”: C. Robert Jennings, “Truman Capote: Hot Shorty with Tall Cool,” Los Angeles Times West Magazine, April 28, 1968, page 10.
page 408 “‘I’m told not to walk…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, April 11, 1968.
page 409 “‘God, what a big lonely country…’”: Jack Dunphy to Gloria Dunphy, April 24, 1968.
CHAPTER 47
page 410 “He had carefully studied the record…”: “Opinion, The Assassination According to Capote,” Time, May 10, 1968, page 65.
page 410 “‘The people who ran the thing…’”: Eleanor Perry to GC, January 29, 1976.
page 411 “‘I always felt that he was asking himself…’”: Stein and Plimpton, American Journey, page 199.
page 411 “The last time they met was…”: Ibid., page 168.
page 412 “That did not stop Truman from going…”: Jack Gould, “TV: Truman Capote Defines His Concept of Justice,” New York Times, June 15, 1968.
page 412 “Such a plan of wholesale murder…”: “Theosophy, Cult of the Occult,” Time, June 19, 1968, page 61.
page 412 “‘Mr. Capote is in complete confusion…’”: Ibid..
page 412 “…an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor…”: “Vigilante Juries,” Christian Science Monitor, June 20, 1968.
page 413 “The program was too grim…”: “ABC, Truman Capote Fall Out Over Special,” Broadcasting, November 4, 1968, page 63.
page 413 “‘Well, what were you expecting…’”: “Truman and TV,” Time, November 29, 1968, page 73.
page 413 “…Elton Rule—‘that sun-tanned Uriah Heep…’”: Dwight Whitney, “I Want It on the Air!” TV Guide, July 4, 1970, page 7.
page 413 “‘My primary thing is that…’”: “Truman and TV,” Time, op. cit., page 74.
page 413 “‘I have been working hard…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, undated, second half of 1968.
page 414 “Shortly after Christmas he left for Palm Springs again…”: Joe Faulk to GC, March 9, 1978.
page 414 “He attacked what he called the ‘Jewish Mafia…’”: Jack O’Brian, “Broadway,” New York Daily Column, April 20, 1969.
page 414 “He once more denounced liberal Supreme Court…”: “TV: Dick Cavett Gets Talk Show in Prime Time,” New York Times, May 27, 1969.
page 414 “He struck first, using…”: Earl Wilson, “The Lady Protests,” New York Post, July 24, 1969.
page 415 “‘Words are like chemicals…’”: Nizer, Reflections Without Mirrors; full discussion of Capote-Susann dispute, pages 101–6.
page 415 “‘How pleasant to have a letter…’”: TC to Louis Nizer, May 16, 1973.
page 416 “‘He had become a television personality…’”: Susann, Dolores, page 68.
page 416 “Knocked unconscious, he was…”: William Diefenbach, M.D., to GC, June 19, 1985.
page 417 “‘Jack refuses to go to California…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, undated, end of 1969.
CHAPTER 48
page 419 “…the first of Truman’s ‘men without faces,’ as Wyatt Cooper…”: Wyatt Cooper to GC, January 6, 1976.
page 420 “‘He wore what they wear…’”: Charlotte Curtis to GC, April 12, 1976.
page 421 “‘Truman was always nagging on…’”: John Richardson to GC, March 7, 1985.
page 421 “‘He knew he was deceiving himself…’”: Saint Subber to GC, August 18, 1986.
page 422 “‘Here was a man…’”: Wyatt Cooper to GC, January 6, 1976.
page 422 “‘He was an authentic primitive…””: Charlotte Curtis to GC, April 12, 1976.
page 422 “‘Truman knew what people…’”: Alan Schwartz to GC, March 17, 1983.
page 422 “Half in tears, he shouted…”: Charlotte Curtis to GC, April 12, 1976.
page 423 “Trying, like everyone else…”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, September 24, 1975.
page 423 “Kay Graham was no less aghast”: Katharine Graham to GC, October 30, 1985.
page 423 “‘When he was with this man…’”: Phyllis Cerf Wagner to GC, January 17, 1978.
page 425 “She was no more impressed…”: Lee Radziwill To GC, February 6, 1976.
page 425 “His ostensible purpose…”: Alan Schwartz, August 18, 1986.
page 426 “Alan telephoned Truman’s Palm Springs lawyer…”: Ibid.
page 427 “Furious at what he labeled…”: “People,” Time, November 2, 1970.
page 427 “…of the following day, October 21…”: “Capote Jailed on Coast,” New York Times, October 22, 1970, page 31.
page 427 “‘I’ve been in thirty or forty jails…’”: “People” Time, op. cit.
page 427 “Leaving Truman in Santa Ana…”: Alan Schwartz, August 18, 1986.
page 427 “‘He was absolutely flattened…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith, September 24, 1975.
page 428 “In his rage, he plotted schemes…”: Joanne Carson to GC, August 2, 1986.
CHAPTER 49
Rick Brown is the chief source for much of the information in this chapter, although Truman and others corroborated most of his facts. I do not think it necessary to cite each instance in which Brown has provided me with a conversation or background.
page 433 “‘Here was this boring and totally…’”: Wyatt Cooper to GC, January 6, 1976.
page 435 “He had met Joanne shortly after the…”: Joanne Carson to GC, November 21, 1975.
page 435 “She had been born in California…”: Joanne Carson, M.A., Ph.D., “The Search for the ‘Magic Pill,’” book proposal, 1980.
page 436 “To his old friend Carol Marcus…”: Carol Marcus Matthau to GC, September 21, 1986.
page 437 (“Ironically, Fitzgerald, who also labored…”): “Ready or Not, Here Comes Gatsby,” Time, March 18, 1974, page 71.
page 438 “…and, on the whole, was pleased with it, he told Alan Schwartz”: TC to Alan Schwartz, February 9, 1972.
page 438 “But Paramount was not…”: “Ready or Not,” Time, op. cit.
page 438 “‘Well, Truman, this is just…’”: Rick Brown to GC, April 8, 1978.
page 438 “Using the excuse…”: New York Times, March 31, 1972.
page 439 “‘I’m sinking back into my book…’”: TC to Alan Schwartz, February 9, 1972.
page 439 “‘It is totally necessary to develop…’”: Rosemary Kent, “Tru Confessions,” Women’s Wear Daily, May 30, 1972.
CHAPTER 50
page 440 “‘Of course I basically don’t really want…’”: Andy Warhol, “Sunday with Mr. C.,” Rolling Stone, April 12, 1973, page 36.
page 441 “Beard was to take the pictures…”: Peter Beard to GC, November 13, 1975.
page 441 “…the ‘fantastic T. Capote,’ as Southern labeled him…”: Terry Southern, “The Rolling Stones’ U.S. Tour: Riding the Lapping Tongue,” Saturday Review of the Arts, August 12, 1972, page 26.
page 441 “Its title, ‘It Will Soon Be Here,’ he…”: Andy Warhol, op. cit., page 40.
page 441 “‘Since there was nothing to “find out,”’ he explained…”: Ibid., page 36.
page 442 “…he admitted that if he had been twenty-five years younger…”: Ibid., page 40.
page 442 “But why, he asked, ‘should I do…’”: Ibid., page 37.
page 442 “Theirs was a bond of brothers…”: Robert MacBride to GC, August 31, 1986.
page 442 “‘He seemed sort of uncooked…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, September 24, 1975.
CHAPTER 51
page 452 “‘You can’t take my car!’”: John O’Shea to GC, November 2, 1986.
page 453 “‘For better or worse…’”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, April 13, 1981.
page 453 “After spending a weekend in May with them…”: Windham, Footnote to a Friendship, page 101.<
page 453 “‘Please be nice to Johnny…’”: Alan Schwartz to GC, February 12, 1976.
page 454 “They stayed with the Wyatts…”: Lynn Wyatt to GC, October 7, 1986.
page 454 “‘I have a gun in my purse…’”: Carol Marcus Matthau to GC, August 28, 1984.
page 455 “‘Oh, Johnny, stop that’…”: John Knowles to GC, October 13, 1976.
page 455 “‘He didn’t try to hide…’”: Arch Persons to GC, September 9, 1976.
page 455 “Truman ordered him to take…”: Don Erickson to GC, March 10, 1987.
page 456 “‘Can I come up there?’”: John Knowles to GC, October 13, 1976.
page 456 “‘Accordingly,’ Alan dutifully wrote John…”: Alan Schwartz to John O’Shea, April 12, 1975.
page 457 “‘If Mr. Capote’s emotional dysfunction is such…’”: John O’Shea to Alan Schwartz, April 15, 1975.
page 457 “Truman’s second call was to Peg O’Shea…”: Peg O’Shea to GC, December 10, 1986.
page 457 “‘He was the father of my children…’”: Ibid.
page 459 “‘What are you doing?’ he asked…”: Judith Green to GC, November 19, 1986.
page 460 “‘That’s impossible!’ bellowed Ava…”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 52
page 461 “Tennessee Williams, who was not…”: Tennessee Williams to GC, April 30, 1976.
page 461 “‘We stood back on our heels…’”: Gordon Lish to GC, December 5, 1986.
page 462 “‘La Côte Basque, 1965’”: Esquire, November, 1975, pages 110–18, 158.
page 466 “‘Truman told me that the point…’”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
page 467 “One day in July he took a friend…”: the friend was GC.
page 468 “What had bothered Ann most, a weary Elsie Woodward…”: Robert Ellsworth to GC, December 25, 1984.
page 468 “The reaction was most succinctly summed up by a cartoon…”: Edward Sorel, cover cartoon, New York, February 9, 1976.
page 468 “‘Who is that?’ Babe inquired…”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, January 29, 1986.
page 469 “‘Never have you heard such gnashing of teeth…’”: Liz Smith, “Truman Capote in Hot Water,” New York, February 9, 1976, page 44.
page 469 “‘that dirty little toad…’”: Ibid., page 50.
page 469 “‘After all,’ explained her husband Wyatt…”: Wyatt Cooper to GC, January 6, 1976.
page 469 “‘It’s very hard to be a gentleman…’”: Morgan, Maugham, page 344.
page 469 “‘the chic of the week…’”: Charlotte Curtis to GC, April 12, 1976.
page 469 “Marella Agnelli, who more than once…”: “Marella Agnelli: Life Is to Be Involved,” Women’s Wear Daily, November 30, 1976, page 7.
page 470 “‘I hate the idea of Truman…’”: Cecil Beaton to Patrick O’Higgins, undated.
page 471 “‘He was the most surprised and shocked person…’”: Liz Smith to GC, March 6, 1985.
page 471 “Joanne Carson watched helplessly…”: Joanne Carson to GC, January 14, 1982.
page 471 “He telephoned Slim…”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to GC, January 29, 1986.
page 471 “‘I have other ways of torturing…’”: Interview with a friend of William Paley.
page 472 “He introduced her to his…”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, June 4, 1978.
page 472 “‘Babe always spoke of Truman…’”: John Richardson to GC, March 7, 1985.
page 472 “Harper Lee glimpsed that disappointment…”: Harper Lee to GC, March 2, 1986.
page 472 “‘If ever there was a woman…’”: Interview with a friend of Lady (Nancy) Keith.
page 473 “‘Oh, honey! It’s Proust!’”: Diana Vreeland to GC, March 1, 1976.
CHAPTER 53
page 474 “Simon had chosen him as the model…”: Neil Simon to GC, November, 1975.
page 474 “‘Gore Vidal must be dying…’”: Josh Greenfeld, “Truman Capote, the Movie Star?” New York Times, December 28, 1975.
page 475 “‘Making that film knocked…’”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
page 475 “‘The original intent may have…’”: Josh Greenfeld, op. cit.
page 475 “‘How am I as an actor?…’”: Liz Smith, “Truman Capote in Hot Water,” op. cit., page 56.
page 475 “…but Guinness’ critique…”: Alec Guinness to GC, February 28, 1986.
page 475 “‘To put Capote at a table…’”: Ernest Leogrande, “Moore Doing Nicely in ‘Out-of-Work’ Role,” New York Daily News, July 6, 1978, page 73.
page 476 “‘It’s pretty good,’ he reported…”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, June 4, 1978.
page 476 “When she picked him up…”: Joanne Carson to GC, September 16, 1986.
page 476 “‘I’ve always [concluded]…’”: John O’Shea to Alan Schwartz, February 29, 1976.
page 477 “‘Truman and I have talked this…’”: Ibid.
page 477 “‘John was always talking…’”: Joanne Carson to GC, January 14, 1987.
page 477 “‘It’s all very interesting being with you…’”: John O’Shea to GC, March 7, 1987.
page 477 “‘I want something dramatic…’”: Ibid.
page 478 “‘Truman didn’t want to…’”: Ibid.
page 478 “John Knowles saw him…”: John Knowles to GC, October 13, 1976.
page 479 “‘It was the only time he had ever been invited…’”: Richard Zoerink, “Truman Capote Talks About His Crowd,” Playgirl, September, 1975, page 54.
page 479 “He admitted, in fact, to a sharp…”: Deposition of Gore Vidal, September 16, 1976, pages 31–34.
page 480 “‘I’m looking forward to getting that little toad!…’”: Liz Smith’s column, New York Daily News, February 16, 1976, page 22.
page 480 “When had he last seen Truman?” Deposition of Gore Vidal, op. cit., page 164.
page 480 “For his part, Truman managed to mangle…”: Anthony Haden-Guest, “The Vidal–Capote Papers: A Tempest in Camelot,” New York, June 11, 1979, page 54.
page 480 “He also suggested that in bringing…”: Ibid., pages 60–61.
page 481 “In the middle of May, John…”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
page 481 “A week after his furtive departure, his car struck…”: “Capote Is Mum on Drunk Driving Charge,” New York Daily News, June 1, 1976, front page and page 3.
CHAPTER 54
page 483 “Capitalizing on his suddenly sinister reputation…”: Esquire, May, 1976, pages 55–68, 122–24, 126, 128, 130, 132, 134–35.
page 484 “‘Somewhere in the world…’”: Ibid., page 55.
page 485 “After rejecting Ann Woodward as his model, Truman chose Pamela Churchill, whose romances…”: For background I relied, in part, on the following: “Smart Set,” New York Journal-American, December 15, 1954, page 18; “Cholly Knickerbocker Observes,” New York Journal-American, August 30, 1949; Leslie Gordon, “Triumphs of a Churchill,” New York Sunday Mirror Magazine, May 13, 1956, page 2; Nancy Randolph, “Chit-Chat,” New York Daily News, July 29, 1959, page 8.
page 486 “…‘famous international siren,’ Cholly Knickerbocker had titled her…”: “Cholly Knickerbocker,” New York Journal-American, June 1, 1959.
page 486–487 “But his chief model for Kate McCloud was the aforementioned Mrs. Harrison Williams”: For background on Mona Williams I found the following articles particularly useful: “Harrison Williams, No. 1 Utilities Magnate, a Serene, Vibrant Figure,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 12, 1937; Morris Gilbert, “Bicycle Craze of 90’s Started Williams Toward Utility Coup,” New York World-Telegram, May 4, 1937; Bettye Lee Mastin, “Lexington’s ‘International Beauty’ Has Led Colorful, Checkered Life,” Lexington (Ky.) Herald, September 15, 1981; Alice Delman, “Louisville’s Cinderella Countess,” The (Louisville) Courier-Journal Magazine, February 10, 1963; Helen Worden, “First Ladies of the ‘400,’” New York World-Telegram, January 11, 1938.
page 488 “…Esquire was still receiving forty requests a day…”: Arthur Bell, “Bell Tells,” The Village Voice, April 5, 1976.
page 488 “‘Gossip-mongers may be…’”: Nancy Collins, “The Capote Caper, Chapter II,” Women’s Wear Daily, April 5, 1976, page 4.
page 488 “Most of the talk centered on Kate McCloud…”: Ibid.; Liz Smith’s column, New York Daily News, October 20, 1976.
page 489 “In the resolutely radical Village Voice, James Wolcott…”: James Wolcott, “Truman Capote Sups on the Flesh of the Famous,” The Village Voice, September 6, 1976, page 65.
page 489 “…on the other side, columnist Max Lerner…”: Max Lerner, “Capote’s World,” New York Post, April 28, 1976.
page 489 “Most furious was Tennessee…”: Tennessee Williams to GC, April 30, 1976.
page 489 “Porter, who was now in her mid-eighties, was just as displeased…”: Katherine Anne Porter to GC, April 8, 1976.
page 490 “Rorem’s response showed…”: Ned Rorem to GC, September 8, 1978.
page 490 “Even in its imperfect state—to paraphrase Edmund Wilson’s…”: Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon, introduction by Edmund Wilson, page 6.
page 492 “…he conducted what one scholar terms a ‘ruthless judicial inquiry…’”: Quennell, Marcel Proust, 1871–1922, A Centennial Volume, page 44.
page 492 “‘It was kinda fun…’”: TC to Cecil Beaton, March 20, 1965.
page 493 “…in which Strachey imagines the dying queen…”: Strachey, Queen Victoria, pages 297–98.
CHAPTER 55
page 495 “‘Truman, I’m in love…’”: John O’Shea to GC, March 7, 1987.
page 496 “Rick Brown, who was once again tending bar…”: Rick Brown to GC, May 10, 1987.
page 498 “Ten days before Christmas, 1976, he invited a friend…”: The friend was GC.
page 500 “‘No! It was not sixteen yrs ago…’”: Jack Dunphy to Paul Cadmus, March 13, 1977.
page 501 “In his Hollywood Reporter column, George Christy…”: George Christy, “The Great Life,” The Hollywood Reporter, April 26, 1977, page 10.
page 501 “Helping him out, Carol Matthau…”: Carol Marcus Matthau to GC, September 1, 1986.
page 502 “‘When Mr. O’Shea came to see me at the [Hotel] Bel-Air…’”: unpublished nineteen-page manuscript by TC, June 12, 1980.
page 504 “John’s own account of those dark days…”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
page 505 “As if that were not enough, John himself phoned…”: Joanne Carson to GC, June 10, 1987.
page 505 “Only after they had arrived…”: Peg O’Shea to GC, December 10, 1986.
page 505 “‘I am an alcoholic, a genuine alcoholic…’”: “Is Truman’s Song: ‘How Dry Am I?’” New York Daily News, November 14, 1977.
page 505 “‘I’m not going to let this…’”: Peg O’Shea to GC, December 10, 1986.
page 506 “The next morning’s headline…”: “Is Truman’s Song ‘How Dry Am I?’” op. cit.
page 506 “Rick, in any case, was unmoved”: Rick Brown to GC, May 10, 1987.
CHAPTER 56
page 509 “‘Can’t you find somebody younger…’”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, November 25, 1980.
page 510 “‘I will be the prince…’”: Anne Taylor Fleming, “Truman Capote’s World, Part 2: The Descent from the Heights,” New York Times Magazine, July 16, 1978, page 44.
page 510 “‘Rendez-vous du High-Life…’”: Mack, Toulouse-Lautrec, page 130.
page 510 “‘I’ve been to an awful lot of…’”: Leslie Bennetts, “An ‘In’ Crowd and Outside Mob Show Up for Studio 54’s Birthday,” New York Times, April 28, 1978.
page 511 “‘Sometimes, when I’m sitting up…’”: “Steve Rubell, in the Heat of the Night,” Interview, February, 1979, page 33.
page 511 “‘It was almost as if we were in jail…’”: Bob Colacello to GC, September 16, 1986.
page 512 “‘My own feeling is that…’”: John Richardson to GC, March 7, 1985.
page 512 “Bill was later to lament…”: Tony Schwartz, “An Intimate Talk with William Paley,” New York Times Magazine, December 28, 1980, page 16.
page 512 “‘But it will take millions…’”: Interview with a friend of William Paley.
page 513 “‘What’s going to happen unless…’”: Transcript of Stanley Siegel Show, July 18, 1978, prepared by Radio TV Reports, Inc., New York.
page 513 “‘Drunk & Doped…’”: Georgiana Pine, “Drunk & Doped Capote Visits TV Talk Show,” New York Post, July 18, 1978.
page 513 “‘A talented man of considerable literary stature…’”: John Cashman, “Capote’s On; It’s Live TV,” Newsday, July 19, 1978, page 3A.
page 514 “‘I saw what that man is about…’”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, July 20, 1978.
page 514 “‘At Bozeman, Montana…’”: Rick Brown to GC, November 7, 1978.
page 517 “It was not a glorious future he was…”: John Fowles, “Capote as Maupassant,” Saturday Review, July, 1980, pages 52–53.
page 517 “‘I do not recall ever discussing…’”: Anthony Haden-Guest, “The Vidal–Capote Papers: A Tempest in Camelot,” New York, June 11, 1979, page 56.
page 518 “…which in early June obediently printed…”: Ibid.
page 518 “‘I’m tired of Truman riding on my coattails…’”: Liz Smith, “Sunday’s People: Truman’s True Love,” New York Daily News, September 23, 1984, page 3.
page 518 “‘Why, no one would have ever heard…’”: Liz Smith, New York Daily News, June 18, 1979.
page 519 “‘If the lovely, divine and sensitive…’”: Sally Quinn, “In Hot Blood,” Washington Post, June 6, 1979, page El.
page 519 “‘A cassette of this show…’”: Ibid., page E3.
page 519 “‘I’ll tell you something about fags…’”: Ibid., page E7.
page 520 “‘Love is blind…’”: Ibid., page E3.
page 520 “‘This is pathology…’”: Sally Quinn, “Hot Blood—and Gore, Chapter Two,” Washington Post, June 7, 1979, page C7.
CHAPTER 57
page 524 “‘Truman wanted to kill him, and I think…’”: Joel Michael to GC, August 8, 1987.
page 526 “Truman was drunk—‘gaga,’ to use John’s word…”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
page 526 “Responding to a drunken, incoherent call, Rick Brown…”: Rick Brown to GC, November 1, 1982, and August 9, 1987.
page 527 “‘Am I right to come into Truman’s life again?…’”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, November 25, 1980.
page 528 “What poor Truman did not know was that…”: Helen Dudar, “The Shrinking World of Doctor Nathan Kline,” Manhattan section of New York Daily News, June 19, 1981, pages 1–3.
page 528 “‘Tonight was one of the great things…’”: Judy Klemesrud, “The Evening Hours,” New York Times, December 19, 1980, page B8.
page 528 “April Johnson, a journalist who had seen him…”: April Johnson to GC, May 9, 1987.
page 529 “…John, to use his own words, ‘beat the shit…’”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
page 529 “…he suffered a broken nose, a fractured rib, a cracked…”: Hospital records of Larkin General Hospital, Miami.
page 529 “…John made an urgent call to Dr. Harold Deutsch…”: Harold Deutsch, M.D., to GC, August 20, 1987.
page 529 “(Brian later denied that he had been involved…)”: Brian O’Shea to GC, September 1, 1987.
page 530 “As they sat down on that Easter Sunday…”: John O’Shea to TC, April 22, 1981.
page 530 “At 6:30 on the morning of April 24…”: Bob MacBride to Alan Schwartz, May 2, 1981.
page 531 “Before Bob’s arrival that morning, Truman had also…”: Joseph Petrocik and Myron Clement to GC, May 5, 1981.
page 531 “Increasingly disturbed, Bob confronted Jack…”: Bob MacBride to GC, August 22, 1987.
page 531 “‘I had always heard from Truman what a prince…’”: Ibid.
page 531 “…Bob wrote Alan Schwartz the next day…”: Bob MacBride to Alan Schwartz, May 2, 1981.
page 532 “John had not been staying with him long…”: John O’Shea to GC, October 1, 1986.
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page 534 “‘That’s just what I need!…’”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, July 12, 1981.
page 534 “‘First there was Marilyn…’”: Robert MacBride to GC, August 22, 1987.
page 536 “‘What would he say? “I’ll be there…”’”: Joseph Petrocik to GC, February 2, 1983.
page 537 “The first, in April, 1982, asked for money…”: John O’Shea to TC, April 19, 1982.
page 537 “The second, a few months later, revealed…”: John O’Shea to TC, August 9, 1982.
page 538 “‘It used to be that he…’” Joseph Petrocik to GC, February 2, 1983
page 538 “‘I recognized finally that…’”: Alan Schwartz to GC, March 17, 1983.
page 539 “‘I wanted him to have it…’”: Arnold Bernstein to GC, September 29, 1987.
page 539 “…as a slut whose ‘only enduring passion’…”: Rudisill with Simmons, Truman Capote, page 63.
page 539 “‘I have never seen so many misstatements of fact…’”: Harper Lee to GC, March 2, 1986.
page 539 “Mary Ida Carter, one of Tiny’s other sisters, was so disgusted…”: Mary Ida Carter to GC, January 7, 1984.
page 539 “‘So amusing,’ she said, ‘to read…’”: Lady (Nancy) Keith to TC, May 2, 1983.
page 540 “‘Capote Mixes Drinking and Driving Again…’”: New York Post, July 4, 1983, page 9.
page 540 “‘People don’t come to court dressed like that…’”: Laura Durkin, “No License to Do That, Judge Says,” Newsday, August 27, 1983.
page 540 “Dismayed to see him sitting alone…”: Liz Smith to GC, March 6, 1985.
page 542 “‘I think it’s criminal what you’re doing…’”: George McCormack, Jr., M.D, to GC, September 1, 1987.
page 543 “‘Not only is he leaving…’”: Ibid.
page 543 “‘Truman is just exactly the way he was…’”: John O’Shea to GC, August 22, 1984.
page 543 “‘I think he came pretty close…’”: William Diefenbach, M.D. to GC, June 19, 1985.
page 544 “‘It’s all over with Jack.’”: Joanne Carson to GC, October 11, 1987.
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Details on the exact circumstances of Truman’s death were provided by Joanne Carson.
For background on Truman’s health and help in interpreting his autopsy report, I am indebted to several doctors who treated him: Harold Deutsch; William Diefenbach; George McCormack, Jr.; Bertram Newman.
For further help in interpreting the autopsy, I am indebted to Dr. Marcus Reidenberg, professor of pharmacology and medicine at Manhattan’s Cornell University Medical College, and Dr. Ronald N. Kornblum, Chief Medical Examiner–Coroner of Los Angeles County, who was in charge of the autopsy. page 546 “‘It has been determined that he died…’”: Press release from the Department of Chief Medical Examiner–Coroner, County of Los Angeles, September 13, 1984.