Just Incredible! Capote's First Novel Is As Genius As It Is Underrated

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	• Other Voices, Other Rooms Truman Capote Vintage, 1994 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 40 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Difficult Read and a Complex Work

I found the book difficult to read and to understand, and I have read a wide variety of Capote's other writings and admired most; but, I ended up reading this book twice, cover to cover, before I could understand clearly what it was all about. There are two themes and there is a story within a story. Plus there is time shifting and the two stories blur together. The novel is about the visit of a young man to the home of his estranged father - who had re-married. The death of the boy's mother triggers the visit. The younger teen, left alone in the world, goes to his father's home and expects to find something which he cannot quite define. He does not find it, and instead discovers other stories, other situations, and other unexpected feelings.

The opening pages describe the ride to the home in an old Ford truck, and that part is very creative and descriptive. It sets the mood for the return of the young Joel Knox to his father's house in the rural south - to Skully's Landing near Noon City. The story is set among the humid fields and swamps near New Orleans, the original home of the boy. Having grown up in a rural area where there was little electricity in the 1950s, I was not surprised by his characterization of the area. And, in fact, I thought that the setting was interesting but secondary to the thrust of the story.

The story is about the clash of generations or expectations between the young healthy and inquisitive man and his declining father who is indifferent to the young man - for reasons that are part of the plot. And, it is about the life of the father. In addition, there are many interesting local characters and an underlying sexual tension in the young man.

The book becomes complicated and a difficult read as the story progresses, but overall still worthwhile - especially after two reads.

Critics call the book brilliant and intense. I did not find it intense, just complicated and sometimes difficult to follow, especially the center sections. The prose is excellent and the novel signals that Capote has talent and imagination: he is a serious writer worth following. On its own, it is short of being a masterpiece.

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Sparkling and Intriguing Capote in His First Novel

Eight years after William Faulkner published THE HAMLET, the first portion of his acclaimed Snopes family chronicle, and roughly ten years before the other two novels of the trilogy, THE TOWN (1957) and THE MANSION (1959) appeared, a remarkable first novel by Truman Capote arrived on the Southern literary scene. Just as Faulkner's full trilogy would come to symbolize the seemingly irresistible and inevitable decay of the post-Civil War South, so too did the young Capote's OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS depict the Deep South as a frayed and unhealthy vestige of its former self. Here we have it all - a desolate ruin of a formerly noble estate now quite literally sinking four inches a year into its own grave, a brother and sister who at least implicitly evidence the despoilage and grinding lassisitude of inbreeding, bizarre marital arrangements straight out of Baby Jane, slavery in spirit if not in fact, and a half-hearted homosexuality devolved into a despoiled and dissolute ennui. If anything, it's almost too much, a hand overplayed to the point of caricature

The basic story line is simple. Twelve-year-old Joel Sansom is shipped out of New Orleans by his caretaking Aunt Ellen to finally meet his absent-since-birth father Edward Sansom at a manor called Skully's Landing. Joel quickly discovers that he has left the big city world of the Big Easy for the small town South, with Skully's Landing existing in an isolated netherworld well beyond the edge of the closest small town of Noon City. The manor is now home to Joel's father, a nearly Siamese-attached brother and sister Randolph and Amy (the former a pompous and lazy effete, the latter a spineless neurotic), and a black maid named Missouri who goes by the name Zoo and whose father is named Jesus Fever. Young Joel is utterly confounded by this crew and mystified by his inability to meet the father whom he has been told lives there. His only consolation is two neighboring sisters, Florabel and Idabel Thompkins. Idabel in particular catches Joel's fancy by her combination of tomboyish behavior and naïve but not altogether innocent sensuality. In the end, young Joel learns the peculiar truth about Randolph and his father, one that intertwines with the fate of a prizefighter named Pepe Alvarez and a sensual, dream-recording woman named Dolores (dolorous?).

Capote's first novel to enter onto the literary stage is at once Southern Gothic in setting yet contemporary in its content. Right from his opening pages, Capote brings the slashing insights and brilliant command of phrase and language to OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS that he continued to display in his later works. In his first paragraph, before we have met a single character, Capote issues a foreshadowed warning about "luminous green logs that shine under the dark marsh water like drowned corpses." Skully's Landing is a place where "the sun was locked in a tomb of clouds," where "folks came when they went off the face of the earth, when they died but were not dead," where "copper waterbugs swung on intricate trapezes of insects' thread, and fungus-flowered fist-size on the wet decrepit wood."

While Truman Capote properly remains best known for IN COLD BLOOD and BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, his earliest novel deserves equally to be read and savored. It is a literary oddity, a coming of age story set amid the decaying ruins of a family and a society. One could readily imagine Capote seeing the Randolph in himself while identifying with young Joel's search for his place in the world. And when all is said and done, OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS feels remarkably life-affirming. How better to sum up Capote's own life and work?

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Fabulous Capote

When you read this book, you will see just why the critics went nuts over this young writer. His character is haunting and reveals the complex nature of its author. The allegory is apparent as we see a young man who, from being abandoned has to interpret the world around him without insight from any dependable adult. He sees its beauties and debaucharies and he comes to conclusions that one would expect from a wizened old soul.

Obvious work of a first time author

Sometimes I think books that are considered "classics" are given good reviews because people, who are told the book is a good read, start to believe it actually is. I thought the book was decent but definitively not worth all the praise it gets. I found the writing choppy and unclear is several places. This was most apparent towards the end when Joel became ill. Maybe I fell asleep but I didn't see any clear indication on what his illness was. This lack of explanation made the story a very tedious read. I'm currently reading a later work by Truman Capote and his writing had vastly improved with age.

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Just Incredible! Capote's First Novel Is As Genius As It Is Underrated

Truman Capote's first novel (published when he was just 22 years old!) may very well be his finest. Although "In Cold Blood" gets all the acclaim, "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is just as powerful in terms of message and is even better (in my opinion) in terms of writing. Capote uses words to paint a gorgeous and vivid portrait of the Deep South like no other writer can. The way that Capote uses prose in this book is just incredible. Even if you've never been to the American South, you can get the feel for it's hot days, tall shady pines and Indian grass. When I read this book, I feel as if I am right there beside the main characters. "Other Voices, Other Rooms" tells the story of 12 year old Joel Knox. After the death of his mother, Joel is summoned by his father (whom he has not seen since he was an infant) to come live at a sprawling and decaying antibellum mansion in rural Alabama. Upon arriving however, Joel finds no sign of his father. Instead, he encounters a bizzare and freakish cast of characters ranging from a friendly black servant girl to a borderline stepmother to a seemingly friendly older cousin with a taste for some disturbing (and very adult) pleasures. During his time at the mansion, Joel discovers old family secrets and uncovers the tragic truth about his father. He also makes a very personal discovery about himself. For anyone who enjoys good old fashion disturbing Southern Gothic, "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is a must read. I have read it three times in the last few years and each time it just gets better and better. Capote's deeply moving coming of age story is largely unnoticed today and that is a shame because "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is an amazingly good start to an amazingly good writing career.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Published when Truman Capote was only twenty-three years old, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a literary touchstone of the mid-twentieth century. In this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to live with the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at Skully?s Landing, the decaying mansion in rural Alabama, his father is nowhere to be found. Instead, Joel meets his morose stepmother, Amy, eccentric cousin Randolph, and a defiant little girl named Idabel, who soon offers Joel the love and approval he seeks.

Fueled by a world-weariness that belied Capote?s tender age, this novel tempers its themes of waylaid hopes and lost innocence with an appreciation for small pleasures and the colorful language of its time and place.

This new edition, featuring an enlightening Introduction by John Berendt, offers readers a fresh look at Capote?s emerging brilliance as a writer of protean power and effortless grace.

From the Hardcover edition.

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