Capote (84 page)
Authors: Gerald Clarke
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
