But that there was no number on the key and furthermore, she had no idea what box, in what bank, or even in what city, it belonged to. There was no clue as to what it did unlock, or if it did, what was inside. We could never find the safe-deposit box. There was a key, and we tried to track it everywhere.
Could it be true? Even if the manuscript had been there, Greyhound moved their station from 7th and Maple in The building still stands today as a parking garage for the L. Merchandise Mart, but I doubt the old lockers have survived. The six type-written and hand-edited pages are still up on the Vanity Fair website.
Nevertheless, it seems most likely that Capote either never finished, or destroyed, the rest of Answered Prayers , and that he spent the eight years between the publication of the Esquire chapters and his death in a slow deterioration, dreaming about how wonderful the stories would be if he could only write them well. It seems most likely that Capote either never finished, or destroyed, the rest of Answered Prayers, and that he spent his last eight years dreaming about how wonderful the stories would be if he could only write them well.
By not writing them, or at least not publishing them, he spared himself any further social damage, and the loss of the friends who did stick by him. Many of these people are the same ones who later reported kindly to Plimpton on the spectacular excerpts they saw, or read, or heard, reinforcing the speculations that Capote himself may have desired.
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This complicated city has spurred many authors to analyze it—and their work made me feel less alone. David Adjmi, author of "Lot Six," on leaving his community and reinventing himself. Skip to content. Electric Lit is 12 years old! Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Don't miss out Subscribe Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work. It was the early s and Truman Capote was in a tough spot, whether he realized it or not.
Alcohol and pills had become constant companions. Capote failed to turn in the book before his death—37 years ago this very week. Why would one shatter their friendships in such an explosive way? What happened to the manuscript? Who was the real Truman and did anyone ever know him? Should personal conversations become creative fodder? For Capote, a writer to his core, how could they not? As Nora Ephron famously said, everything is copy. Capote moved on from the episode, adopting a different circle, spending nights at Studio 54 with a younger set of friends that included Andy Warhol.
As drugs and alcohol became a larger part of his life, writing was a lesser one. The due date for Answered Prayers grew further and further in the rear-view mirror. So, he had a lot in mind and he kept telling Joe Fox and me that it was well under way. Schwartz repeatedly renegotiated the Random House contract. Capote died on August 25, , a month before he would have turned 60, in the Bel-Air home of his friend Joanne Carson, the ex-wife of Johnny Carson. His death precipitated another question: where was the manuscript?
But the hunt continued for the full book that Capote had told friends he was working on. Before her death, Carson insisted Capote was writing the book while living in her home and that she had seen the manuscript. But the pages were never found. A short lifetime earlier, Capote held the famed Black and White Ball , a Plaza Hotel-set gala that would become one of the most chronicled parties in American history.
Hot off the success of In Cold Blood, he was the toast of the town, achieving a kind of literary fame that seems nearly incomparable in modern culture. The 13,word story, which was set in the dining room of a fine restaurant where a society dame divulges all manner of gossip and scandal to her handsome young companion, featured unflattering and very thinly disguised portrayals of his friends.
The impact was immediate. Before it had even been published, Ann Woodward, a society figure who had shot and killed her husband 20 years earlier, died by suicide.
She was said to be distraught when she learned that a figure based on her appeared in the piece. Overnight orders had changed, and the new fashion was to hate Truman. And this from people who were not mentioned at all! Capote seemed unwilling to acknowledge the inevitable stir the piece would create. He also wrote part of a screenplay that year with the title Answered Prayers, about a manipulative southern gigolo and his unhappy paramour.
Though the screenplay was apparently abandoned, the idea took shape as a lengthy, Proustian novel. The title is taken from St. Begun in , it would consume six years of his life—most of it spent living in Kansas, a world away from the New York society he loved and from the city where he felt he belonged. In the story Capote revealed their gossip, the secrets, the betrayals—even a murder.
Regis hotel. It was where the swans gathered to lunch and to see and be seen. In the story a literary hustler and bisexual prostitute named P.
A much-married-and-divorced society matron, she has been stood up by the Duchess of Windsor, so she invites Jonesy to join her for lunch at one of the coveted tables at the front of the restaurant.
If she had looked in the mirror, she would have seen Slim Keith, who had been well and often married, to film director Howard Hawks and film and theatrical producer Leland Hayward before wedding the English banker Sir Kenneth Keith.
The story unfolds as a long, gossipy conversation—a monologue, really—delivered by Lady Coolbirth over countless flutes of Roederer Cristal champagne. Lady Coolbirth grouses about having got stuck at a dinner next to Princess Margaret, who bored her into semi-unconsciousness. As for Gloria Vanderbilt, Capote presents her as empty-headed and vain, especially when she fails to recognize her first husband, who stops by her table to say hello.
P had only one fault: she was perfect; otherwise, she was perfect. Worried that his wife will arrive at any moment, Dillon scrubs the sheet in the bathtub, on his hands and knees, and then attempts to dry it by baking it in the oven before replacing it on the bed. Babe was horrified and heartbroken. She was seriously ill at the time with terminal lung cancer, and, instead of blaming her husband for the infidelity, she blamed Truman for putting it into print.
Sir John Richardson, the acclaimed Picasso biographer and Vanity Fair contributing editor, saw her often during the last months of her life. Terrified that he will kick her out, Ann takes advantage of a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood and loads a shotgun, which she keeps beside her bed. She fatally shoots David, claiming that she mistook him for an intruder. Her mother-in-law, Hilda Hopkins Elsie Woodward , desperate to avoid a scandal, pays off the police, and an inquest never brings charges against Ann for murder.
On October 10, , just a few days before the November Esquire appeared, Ann Woodward was found dead. Lionel Twain, an eccentric connoisseur of crime. It was supposed to be great fun, but Truman found working on Murder by Death to be grueling. The reviews were not kind. Love, Truman. But what really broke his heart was the reaction from the Paleys. Screwing up his courage, Truman phoned Bill Paley, who took the call. Then a terrible thing happened: the magazine was thrown away. My wife is very ill.
Truman was not invited to the funeral. She was asked by Clay Felker, the editor of New York magazine, to interview him. I went to Hollywood to interview him. He called her. He was the most surprised and shocked person you can imagine, and he would call to ask me—torment me—about what people in New York had said about him.
But Truman was their exception, because he was so amusing. In a way, Truman could be very seductive, and he was a good listener. He was sympathetic. He seduced both the men and the women. Ostracizing Truman became the thing to do. After all, he was fun and interesting to talk to, and brilliant. And then, of course, the terrible fear that he could never write another word again.
It was all downhill from then on. Jones the P.
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