A Bridge of Childhood: Truman Capote's Southern Years

While I am not particularly a fan of Truman Capote's writing, I found this book to be highly entertaining. It gives a true and accurate account of life in small-town Alabama and is filled with humorous tales of the escapades of three young friends during the Great Depression. It is also a moving and poignant tale of a young boy's struggle to belong, and offers insight into the eccentricities of Mr. Capote. The stories are short, so this book makes for good reading when time is short (like during break-time at work!). I think this book would be entertaining to people from small towns as well as large cities, and Capote fans as well as non-Capote fans.

Essentially the recollections of Truman Capote's cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter, this book recounts the childhood years that Truman spent in Monroeville, Alabama growing up with Jennings and Nelle Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird." It contains descriptions of actual events that appear in Capote's later writings, and thus will be of interest to readers of his fiction, but the writing is pleasurable in its own right. Fascinated by the number of good writers who have come out of such a small town (there are others), I drove two hours each way to visit Monroeville while on a business trip to Mobile several years ago. Even though it has grown substantially since Truman grew up there, it remains a lovely southern town, with wide verandas, shade trees and a courthouse that is not to be missed.