Capote's first novel follows Joel Knox, a sensitive thirteen-year-old sent from New Orleans to live with the father he barely knows. He arrives at a decaying country house in the rural South, where he meets a strange household and neighbours who seem half hidden from the world. The book is a Southern gothic tale of loneliness, secrets and a boy's search for belonging and identity. Its dreamlike style and frank emotional honesty made the young author famous.
Quotes
It seemed odd to Joel that nature did not reflect so solemn an event: flowers of cotton-boll clouds within a sky as scandalously blue as kitten-eyes were offensive to their sweet disrespect.
A resident of over a hundred years in so narrow a world deserved higher homage.
Never trust a nigger: their minds and hair are full of kinks in equal measure.
The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.