other voices, other rooms

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote (Signet, 1948)

I don’t know why I’ve never read this book — I’ve had this old paperback copy of it forever.  I had the idea that I had started it once and hadn’t like it, but I don’t think that’s the case because it is riveting from the first page.  The writing is brilliant: incandescent and inventive and original, and the book is very shrewdly composed and executed.

It’s the story of a young boy — 13 — who, after his mother dies, moves from New Orleans to a small Southern town to live with his father, who he has never really known.  His father lives with Amy, his second wife, and Randolph, her cousin, in a mouldering mansion in the swampy outskirts of the town.  He rarely sees his father, who spends all his time in bed, his body failing and his mind gone.  He is befriended by Zoo, the Black maid of all work, and Idabel, a tomboy neighbor who he decides to run away with, an aborted misadventure that concludes the book.

Some of the lushly unrestrained and lyrical writing seems indulgent and does not disappear into the story, but most of the writing is thrillingly brilliant, and reading this book was a transporting experience.  It’s a small, short book, but its impact — characters and writing — is indelible.