Other Voices Other Doors

Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South. “Intense, brilliant . . . . Capote has an astonishing command . . . a magic all his own.” —The Atlantic At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face—and heart—of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.

Douglas Cameron, once an aspiring rock musician and a huge Doors fan, describes his three-week stint as a roadie for the Doors in 1969, at the beginning of the band's decline, as well as his other interactions with band members over the years.

The private letters of Truman Capote, lovingly assembled here for the first time by acclaimed Capote biographer Gerald Clarke, provide an intimate, unvarnished portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most colorful and fascinating literary figures. Capote was an inveterate letter writer. He wrote letters as he spoke: emphatically, spontaneously, and passionately. Spanning more than four decades, his letters are the closest thing we have to a Capote autobiography, showing us the uncannily self-possessed naïf who jumped headlong into the post–World War II New York literary scene; the more mature Capote of the 1950s; the Capote of the early 1960s, immersed in the research and writing of In Cold Blood; and Capote later in life, as things seem to be unraveling. With cameos by a veritable who’s who of twentieth-century glitterati, Too Brief a Treat shines a spotlight on the life and times of an incomparable American writer.

"Other Voices, Other Towns" has, in reality, taken Caleb Pirtle III a lifetime to write. During the thirty years he has been writing about travel across this great land, he spent much of his time listening to those whose paths he crossed. Pirtle collects people. He collects their stories. He is firmly convinced that everyone who has ever walked across the street has a great story to tell if only someone will take the time to listen. Pirtle has recorded many of them in "Other Voices, Other Towns." The sketches, the anecdotes, the tales they tell, the memories they have stored, their lessons of life make you feel better or make you want to cry. Their stories are filled with disappointments and with inspiration: The blind man who tends his beehives in the Smoky Mountains and knows that someday "I'm going to where the mountains are higher and prettier and you don't get bee stung." The rancher who bought a whole town because it had a beer joint, and he could get a drink any time he was thirsty. The woman who built a major university on the strength of a dime. The grieving father searching for "the best little girl in the world." The vagabond who became a great writer because he flunked grammar and could not enroll in college. The last man on the mountain, the last survivor on an island, the last woman strong enough to tame though not civilize the Okefenokee Swamp. The teacher who taught history in school by singing the lessons he had written as songs. The men who created "Lum and Abner." The scientist digging for clues to prove a space ship had crashed in the backyard of Aurora, Texas. The performer who rescued the abandoned remains of a crumbling theater. The actor who figured out that a theater ticket was worth a mess of greens or a gallon milk during the Great Depression. The old con artist and wildcatter who defied the odds and discovered a great oilfield. The politician who had one cause, passed it in the legislature, and went home because there were no other bills that concerned him. The fishermen who stumbled across pearls in a landlocked lake. The girl singer who rode in a small RV behind the star until she became the star. The sad journey down the trail of broken promises. And the greatest worm fiddler of them all. For Pirtle, other voices in other towns, have all been joined together to form the traveler's story.

From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are In Cold Blood, Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories Together in one volume, here are a pair of literary touchstones from Truman Capote’s extraordinary early career: the transcendently popular novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms, the debut novel he published as a twenty-three-year-old prodigy. Of all his characters, Capote once said, Holly Golightly was his favorite. The hillbilly-turned-Manhattanite at the center of Breakfast at Tiffany’s shares not only the author’s philosophy of freedom but also his fears and anxieties. For Holly, the cure is to jump into a taxi and head for Tiffany’s; nothing bad could happen, she believes, amid “that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets.” Other Voices, Other Rooms begins as thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to rural Alabama to live with his estranged father—who is nowhere to be found. Instead, Joel meets his eccentric family and finds a kindred spirit in a defiant little girl. Despite its themes of waylaid hopes and lost innocence, this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel revels in small pleasures and the colorful language of its time and place.

No.1 - Mischief on Campus (Dieppe revisited): The word "Dieppe" recalls the horror of that disaster - 900 killed and 1500 taken prisoner - and makes us think of the effect that carnage had on those who came back to tell the story. Many, such as Dylan Magee returned to university or entered as a freshman. The challenge was daunting; the sudden change from uniform to civies, from guns to books, did not heal all wounds. No. 2 - Pamela's Potted Ferns: This lighter piece, tells of a young, naïve volunteer's introduction to the world of volunteerism. He offers to serve lunch to the elderly and the poor. He listens to their stories but gets carried away by their clever little follies. No. 3 - The Little Eagle, (the Aiglon), a member of the French Résistance, and a national hero, becomes a hit-man in disguise, when the government fails to grant him the Légion d'honneur for his outstanding war-time services. A specialist in plastic explosives, he makes a contract with Anatole, a wealthy young scion, to "wipe his family slate clean" by eliminating his late father's mistress and her bastard child. No. 4 - David and Goliath: Here we meet a big bully in a Paris High School who gets his comeuppance. The bully is brought down by a smaller, younger boy, who applies certain basic elements of pugilistic science - and becomes the school hero. No. 5 - A Dazzling Discovery: Paul, a young architect, seeks a restful escape after a great personal tragedy. He goes to the U.K. on a quiet package tour. No sooner is he settled in his hotel room when he finds himself in the crossfire of a criminal investigation dating back ten years. He learns that Sebastian, one of a group of diamond thieves - involved in a £3,000,000 diamond heist - is trying to take over his hotel room. Chief Inspector Spencer places a guard in the hall for Paul's protection. Thanks to a series of insights, Paul finds the diamonds, but tells no one. He decides to disappear into the shady enclaves of the black market, hoping to emerge a wealthy man. No. 6 - Birth of a Portrait: A sensitive young artist prepares his charcoal sketch for a portrait to be entered in an international contest. His subject is a strikingly handsome boy with remarkable features. Since the boy is a pianist, the artist takes his time to find the right pose at the piano. He emphasizes the boy's hands as well as his strong, handsome face. Will he be able to capture on canvas the youthful beauty of his subject and win the prize? No. 7 - An Angel's Touch: A terrible car accident takes place in New York. The driver dies in the emergency ward. Three other passengers are spared. Suddenly they are all spirited away in a passing taxi before the police or the ambulance arrives. The police are baffled. No trace of the victims can be found in the hospital or in their wrecked, rental car. The case is written off as thw work of the Mafia. Years later, John Steele (one of the survivors) receives a midnight phone call from the hospital asking him to visit Charles Fleming, a missionary whose death he had witnessed forty years ago! No. 8 - Mint-Fresh Canadian: An amusing and disturbing contrast between the thoughts and attitudes of a brand-new Canadian and a regular Canadian who takes his citizenship for granted. No. 9 - A Naughty Affair: The scene is Paris. A sudden and unexpected flirtation evolves between a struggling young artist and a wealthy widow twice his age. An excellent dinner, preceded by too many apéritifs and followed by too many glasses of champagne, sets the stage for this encounter - prolonged beyond measure - by his warm, eager, and passionate entreaty to paint her portrait. No. 10 - Phantom Lake: The story takes place in Flin Flon, Manitoba, a small mining town. Young love teaches the elders a leasson when family strife, money, and myste

This engrossing anthology assembles classic New Yorker pieces from a complex era enshrined in the popular imagination as the decade of poodle skirts and Cold War paranoia—featuring contributions from Philip Roth, John Updike, Nadine Gordimer, and Adrienne Rich, along with fresh analysis of the 1950s by some of today’s finest writers. The New Yorker was there in real time, chronicling the tensions and innovations that lay beneath the era’s placid surface. In this thrilling volume, classic works of reportage, criticism, and fiction are complemented by new contributions from the magazine’s present all-star lineup of writers. The magazine’s commitment to overseas reporting flourished in the 1950s, leading to important dispatches from East Berlin, the Gaza Strip, and Cuba during the rise of Castro. Closer to home, the fight to break barriers and establish a new American identity led to both illuminating coverage, as in a portrait of Thurgood Marshall at an NAACP meeting in Atlanta, and trenchant commentary, as in E. B. White’s blistering critique of Senator Joe McCarthy. The arts scene is recalled in critical writing rarely reprinted, including Wolcott Gibbs on My Fair Lady, Anthony West on Invisible Man, and Philip Hamburger on Candid Camera. Also featured are great early works from Philip Roth and Nadine Gordimer, as well as startling poems by Theodore Roethke and Anne Sexton, among others. Completing the panoply are insightful and entertaining new pieces by present-day New Yorker contributors examining the 1950s through contemporary eyes. The result is a vital portrait of American culture as only one magazine in the world could do it. Including contributions by Elizabeth Bishop • Truman Capote • John Cheever • Roald Dahl • Janet Flanner • Nadine Gordimer • A. J. Liebling • Dwight Macdonald • Joseph Mitchell • Marianne Moore • Vladimir Nabokov • Sylvia Plath • V. S. Pritchett • Adrienne Rich • Lillian Ross • Philip Roth • Anne Sexton • James Thurber • John Updike • Eudora Welty • E. B. White • Edmund Wilson And featuring new perspectives by Jonathan Franzen • Malcolm Gladwell • Adam Gopnik • Elizabeth Kolbert • Jill Lepore • Rebecca Mead • Paul Muldoon • Evan Osnos • David Remnick Praise for The 50s “Superb: a gift that keeps on giving.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “[A] magnificent anthology.”—Literary Review