Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story

Truman Capote and Harper Lee were kids together way back when, and now fate has brought them back together as the Clutter family (whom capote made famous with his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood) appears to them as ghosts in a present haunted by broken dreams and bittersweet memories. While at first it seems presumptuous and ill-mannered of Kim Powers to write about Harper Lee as though she were nothing but a character in his book, I son found myself delighted by his re-cast of her as one of the Steel Magnolias ladies, a helping of Fried Green Tomatoes on the side. It is for Truman that Mr. Powers unleashes his worst venom. Truman comes across here as a spoiled, petulant drunken baby who never grew up. His maid, Myrtle, is disgusted by him, and by extension, all "white folks," and his boyfriend is really nothing more than a greedy redneck straight man who resents, Caliban-like, the Prospero ways of his master. In an afterword Mr. Powers tells us that To Kill a Mockingbird and In Cold Blood were two of his favorite books as a kid, and now he has put together this tribute to the two authors, seeing them as they were as children, then in midlife performing the Kansas research for In Cold Blood, then we see them years later when all the fun of the black and white ball has worn off and Truman is no more than a reviled wreck, and Harper Lee an enigma Powers is unable to parse further. His book is a wonderful treat for those interested in how the mystery of writing itself descends from heaven and unites unwary strangers or cousins. I can't wait to see what Mr., Powers comes up with next, after he extracts Harper Lee's lawyers from his rectum.

Truman Capote, Nelle Harper Lee, two illustrious Southern authors: one flamboyant, brazen and pretentious, the other seemingly sensible and resolute, once firm friends who haven't spoken in decades or have they? Did Truman really pen To Kill a Mockingbird? Why are the Clutter's (the murdered family from In Cold Blood) spirits haunting Nelle and Capote? Who is sending Nelle strange upsetting packages? In the last year of his life Capote calls Lee one final time, rambling drunk (or scared stiff?) to declare in his tinny voice he is being haunted by the Clutters. Annoyed, yet still seized by Truman's sudden, startling news and intrusion into her still-life like life, Nelle is unbelieving until Bonnie Clutter pays her a visit late one evening. What follows is a brutal, touching analogy of a friendship mysteriously gone astray only to be rediscovered amongst ghosts, memories and parcels. Set in 1984 and 59' and their brilliant depression era childhood, Capote and Lee's past and present are blended brilliantly by the visitations and Power's commanding imagery of words. Capote's life, an upheaval of drugs and booze, drags the mundane into high-flying drama which at times is both poignantly pitiful and delightfully funny. Whilst Nell's years have been a study of a stale existence, still it is her side of the story which is most compelling and moving. Power's has fashioned an original touching story of friendship and 'what might have been.' An imaginative fabrication of ghosts and troubled souls, a story that lingers long after the last page has been read.

They were children - a tomboy and a summer visitor from the big city - and decades later he would be a famous writer while she struggled to tell the story of her childhood. He was Truman Capote; she was Harper Lee. This fictionalized account of their relationship and the story of two Southern backwoods residents who each became one of the biggest writers of their time - and stopped speaking to each other - makes for an engrossing, fantastic blend of strong characterization and gripping plot. Any who would categorize this as simply quasi-biography, fiction or ghost story will find its power and enchantment simply undeniable: an outstanding recommendation for general lending collections strong in fictionalized facts. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

CAPOTE IN KANSAS is like a good impressionist painting in that, once you have a chance to step back and consider the whole, you see an astonishing portrait. I have to admit that I was a little uncertain as I read through this book, made up of alternating chapters about the end-of-their-lives Truman Capote and Harper Lee, I wasn't so sure I liked what was going on. Was this supposed to be a mystery? A ghost story, as its subtitle promises? Or something else? After closing the book on its last page, I decided it was something else entirely. CAPOTE IN KANSAS is a beautiful, well-realized rumination on friendship and the ties that bind us throughout our lives. The book takes some fascinating detours into Lee and Capote's time in Kansas, researching the brutal murders of the Clutter family and travels back further in time to the childhood of the two protagonists, when their true bond with one another was cemented. In the end, this lyrical story wants to say, we are bound most firmly with those who helped make us who we are, for better or worse. And the real ghosts are the childhood Truman and Harper. Their potential was realized, yet the tragedy of realizing that potential so soon haunted both of them for the rest of their lives, connecting them in ways neither probably ever imagined, until they were confronted with the specter of their own and others' immortality in very real ways. Highly recommended.

This is a wonderful, thoughtful book by a new master of words. A creative concept that follows Harper Lee and Truman Capote in later years, with mysteries and blends fact with fiction. It is a book that makes you want to revist their work as well as revist his after you have done that. Powers first novel is as good, if not better, than his memoir. Check them both out and savor. Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story