Sometimes Peaceful, Sometimes Not

My lovely spouse had a big struggle with cats this morning during their regulated and controlled outside time. Bubastis has now learned a trick from her late sister and is constantly trying to escape to the front yard where she is not allowed to go. My lovely spouse is chasing after her, meanwhile Rusalka has been scared of an early morning lawnmower and is begging to be put back inside. A few minutes later, she’s gotten most of the cats inside and left me with the calmest one — Jabberwocky. But soon I’m running across the yard barefoot in the prickle bushes because I think she’s pounced on something.

And she has. A leaf.

It was not a calm fifteen minutes in the back garden today.

Truman Capote Did Not Deliver

As my second feature for Friendsgiving month, I decided to review one of the most notable novels to never be finished — Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers. The finished portion was published posthumously in 1987, but Capote received a sizable advance for the book when he was very much alive. The original delivery date? January 1968.

Basically, it became a joke that Capote enjoyed recounting, especially on The Dick Cavett Show. The novel itself is basically the down-and-out confessions of one P B Jones, a young man who has spent time being the companion of the famous, but also as a rent boy. With characteristic wit and more than a hint of bitter acidity, Capote uses this bare-bones scaffolding of a story to recount actual events, conversation, and gossip that he was privy to during his glory days in New York and as an international bon vivant. This did not make him many friends.

So Much Uproar

These are some very amusing stories, but it is clear when you read them that the characters are thinly veiled representations of people that Capote knew in real life. People like Tennessee Williams (who apparently had a dog he wasn’t inclined to walk himself), Tallulah Bankhead, and even Paul Bowles. It’s a scandalous novel, but I did not expect anything less from Capote. He’s one of my favourite writers because of his knack for making every petty detail a sarcastic bon mot.

However, I can see why this book caused such an uproar. It’s clear that he was told many things in confidence that he decided to publish for the whole world to read — and to recognize. That combined with Capote’s continually erratic behaviour spelled the end of his glory days and a lot of his friendships. So many years later, it’s fun to read and connect this novel to the real people it’s describing, even if it requires a bit of research. But it’s important to keep in mind just what kind of destruction it caused in the lives it happened to touch.

What’s Left Behind

So, what is there to get out of this so many years later? Well, now that the scandal has faded, Answered Prayers is an important work in terms of where it fell in Capote’s career and how many times he talked about it over the course of decades. Reading this book gives one a glimpse into the writer and his world — even if you absolutely cannot take everything you read as fact. It can also be a litmus test of how much you know about the literati and smart set of a certain time and place.

Also, also? It makes you really appreciate the friends you have that can and do see you at your worst and don’t decide that it makes good fodder for their literary masterpiece.

Trying to Get to My Feet

I’m still struggling under a lot of grief that’s making it hard to keep functioning through the weight of it. It feels like every routine is going through the motions. I feel disconnected and lost and it’s been difficult. Especially when I know that people want to help, but I don’t know what I can really ask them to do. There’s really nothing to be done. My heart aches and time seems to move in strange sloshes as I try to make the right faces and say the right things. I think all I really need is time.