Best Seller
A Christmas Memory
Hardcover
$20.00
Published on Nov 12, 1996 | 128 Pages
Three holiday stories in one festive volume from literary titan Truman Capote: “A Christmas Memory,” “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” and “One Christmas”
“Capote, in a bright, fluttering, wheeling way, makes all the tinsel and confetti and embroidery that bind together such delicate emotions as nostalgia and sentimentality come vigorously to life.”—The New Yorker, on “A Christmas Memory”
Here are three holiday stories that Truman Capote himself regarded as among his greatest works of short fiction. “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor” were inspired by Capote’s early years with a family of distant relatives in rural Alabama. These two childhood tales pay loving tribute to an eccentric old-maid cousin, Miss Sook Faulk, who became Capote’s best friend.
In “A Christmas Memory,” Miss Sook, Buddy (the narrator), and their dog, Queenie, celebrate the yuletide in a hilariously tipsy state. In the poignant reminiscence “One Christmas,” six-year-old Buddy journeys to New Orleans for a reunion with his estranged father that shatters many illusions. And in “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” Miss Sook invites an unexpected guest to the holiday meal: the school bully, Odd Henderson, whom Buddy calls “the meanest human creature in my experience.”
Distinguished by Capote’s delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, these three classics are gems that celebrate the unique bonds of friends and family.
“Capote, in a bright, fluttering, wheeling way, makes all the tinsel and confetti and embroidery that bind together such delicate emotions as nostalgia and sentimentality come vigorously to life.”—The New Yorker, on “A Christmas Memory”
Here are three holiday stories that Truman Capote himself regarded as among his greatest works of short fiction. “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor” were inspired by Capote’s early years with a family of distant relatives in rural Alabama. These two childhood tales pay loving tribute to an eccentric old-maid cousin, Miss Sook Faulk, who became Capote’s best friend.
In “A Christmas Memory,” Miss Sook, Buddy (the narrator), and their dog, Queenie, celebrate the yuletide in a hilariously tipsy state. In the poignant reminiscence “One Christmas,” six-year-old Buddy journeys to New Orleans for a reunion with his estranged father that shatters many illusions. And in “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” Miss Sook invites an unexpected guest to the holiday meal: the school bully, Odd Henderson, whom Buddy calls “the meanest human creature in my experience.”
Distinguished by Capote’s delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, these three classics are gems that celebrate the unique bonds of friends and family.
Author
Truman Capote
Truman Capote was born in New Orleans on September 30, 1924. In 1948 his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, was published to international critical acclaim, assuring Capote a place among the prominent postwar American writers. He won the O. Henry Memorial Short Story Prize twice and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His other works include Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Grass Harp, and the nonfiction masterpiece In Cold Blood. He died on August 25, 1984.
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