Summer Crossing

The "reason to be" of this book is the last paragraph. Everything was conceived so that that paragraph could be tagged at the end. And since the book is a super quick read, it is well worth it.

In his owns words, Truman Capote never intended to publish "Summer Crossing". He felt it to be unfinished and below his standard of his writing as it was written before his publication career blossomed. Yet the estate of Capote recently decided to publish the book with a few minor changes that were said to be mostly cosmetic. "Summer Crossing" is certainly a flawed draft of a story which seems to show significance in that it demonstrates perhaps the greatest American writer developing his craft. Grady McNeil, who bears a resemblance to Holly Golightly of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", is noted for a flippant attitude in her young age. Frequently a concern of her mother and sister Apple, the concern becomes justified when Grady engages in relationship with Clyde. Below her in the social ladder, Clyde is an exciting risk for Grady. As the summer passes, Grady's inhibitions erode, leaving her in a seemingly unresolvable situation. While the title "Summer Crossing" is derived from the mother's summer trip to Europe, the title can also be interpreted as a season crossing of personal borders. Just as the title is ambiguous, the story is an ambiguous reflection of Capote's talents. Capote's ability to find the perfect word or phrase in any situation is quite rough. With Capote's greatest talent in its primitive stages, the writer fails to shine.

I'm largely writing to add some stars to the rating for this book. Fascinating to see how Capote started off his writing career. The characters and story stem from a youthful perspective, yet are rich and mature in their depth, complexity and subtlety. If you are a Capote reader, this will not disappoint and will add a fascinating dimension to your sense of the author. It's short and wonderful summer read - pick it up!

Finally we find out why Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow named their daughter "Apple," after the sister of the heroine of Truman Capote's masterful 40s novel SUMMER CROSSING, discovered in a heap of trash by a fellow who moved into Capote's Brooklyn apartment after he vacated for Europe. The Berg Collection at New York's Public Library bought up the manuscript to add to their Capote archive when it presently became available through the trash-seeker's family (together with a whole heap of other manuscripts, letters, family papers, and one complete short story--a lot of unpublished material which makes a trip to the NYPL a must for the Capote fancier). And now his longtime publisher, Random House, has brought out the book to mixed reviews. Well, not everyone gets Truman Capote, and even I, his greatest fan of all times, vacillate like the pingpong of radar between two states of adoration and cold hauteur. Sometimes he writes like the American Proust he said he was, and sometimes he writes like Maya Angelou on one of her greeting cards for Hallmark. Sometimes these disparate effects can be traced within the borders of one sentence. Maybe that's why I like him so much, because he cares about his writing, and yet he really doesn't care about taste. Some people (like the publishers for example) have said that the heroine of SUMMER CROSSING, Grady McNeil, reminds them of Holly Golightly, that she's an early and inferior sketch for Holly Golightly, who charmed us all in Capote's later BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. If she's an early sketch for anything, she might be in the running for a proto Kate McCloud. McCloud was to be the heroine of Capote's notorious unfinished novel ANSWERED PRAYERS, and we all know what happened there. What's great about her passion in SUMMER CROSSING is the sharply observed contretemps it gets her into. She knows it's ridiculous that she fell for Clyde's seedy charm. Something about his Jewishness got her where she lives, in the shadow of the Holocaust she finds his Jewish identity supersensual, with the darkness and profundity of a DH Lawrence hero. We haven't had this kind of direct equation lately--the Jewish underclass punk as the noble savage, the dangerous temptation to the "heiress of all the ages" whom Grady represents so beautifully. Some of the sex writing still takes one's breath away, it is so stark and unrelenting. Clyde may be an animal, but I'd do him in ten seconds if I were that kind of girl. From sentence to sentence you haven't read a better book this year, but as a novel, it's a little thin and undeveloped, or maybe it's a little bit confusing and Capote might have considered re-writing it from the POV of Peter Bell, the upperclass twit with the swimmer's bod who considers Grady his property, since they grew up together with the silver spoons. As it stands, Peter's just a sideshow for the main attraction. We see Grady going downhill irrevocably, but we don't believe it. She's too strong to be so

This is a work that dives into life with an ability that is breath-taking. Here is the description of a cat house at the Central Park Zoo. "The cat house of a zoo has an ornery smell, an air prowled by sleep, mangy with old breath and dead desires...At feeding time a cat house turns into a thunderous jungle, for the attendant, passing with blood-dyed hands among the cages, is sometimes slow, and his wards, jealous of one who has been fed first, scream down the roof, rattle the steel with roars of longing." The description of a panther and leopard reminds one of Rilke. "Somehow the leopard does not suffer, nor the panther: their swagger makes distinct claims upon the pulse...." And here is a character perfectly depicted, wavering: "for it was impossible to feel, as Grady certainly didn't, threatened by or jealous of her." Try writing a sentence like that at age nineteen.