A new direction for Capote studies that reconsiders the author's place
in literary criticism, the canon, and the classroom
Truman Capote--along with his most famous works In Cold Blood and
Breakfast at Tiffany's--continues to have a powerful hold over the
American popular imagination. His glamorous lifestyle, which included
hobnobbing with the rich and famous and frequenting the most elite
nightclubs in Manhattan, makes him the subject of ongoing interest for
public and academic audiences alike. In Understanding Truman Capote,
Thomas Fahy provides a new direction for Capote studies that offers a
way to reconsider the author's place in literary criticism, the canon,
and the classroom.
By reading Capote's work in its historical context, Fahy reveals the
politics shaping his writing and refutes any notion of Capote as
disconnected from the political. Instead this study positions him as a
writer deeply engaged with the social anxieties of the 1940s and 1950s.
Understanding Truman Capote also applies a highly interdisciplinary
framework to the author's writing that includes discussions of
McCarthyism, the Lavender Scare, automobile culture, juvenile
delinquency, suburbia, Beat culture, the early civil rights movement,
female sexuality as embodied by celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, and
atomic age anxieties. This new approach to Capote studies will be of
interest in the fields of literature, history, film, suburban studies,
sociology, gender/sexuality studies, African American literary studies,
and American and cultural studies.
Capote's writing captures the isolation, marginalization, and
persecution of those who deviated from or failed to achieve white
middle-class ideals and highlights the artificiality of mainstream
idealizations about American culture. His work reveals the deleterious
consequences of nostalgia, the insidious impact of suppression, the
dangers of Cold War propaganda, and the importance of equal rights.
Ultimately Capote's writing reflects a critical engagement with American
culture that challenges us to rethink our understanding of the 1940s and
1950s.
