Word: novelized
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...shape to fulfill his ambition. His introduction to Music for Chameleons (1980) refers to debilitating emotional problems and difficulties with alcohol and drugs. Social ostracism also left its mark, as did the strains of professional pride. Capote needed a success to match In Cold Blood, his so-called nonfiction novel published way back...
...central fiction about the hard-cover repackaging of Answered Prayers is the presumption that it is a novel, unfinished or otherwise. Rather, it is an act of merchandising that will divert attention from A Capote Reader, a generous collection of traditional fiction and imaginative journalism that invites renewed appreciation of one of the most gifted writers of his generation. "He writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm," wrote Norman Mailer nearly 30 years ago. The early Southern stories have the delicate tinkle of glasses of iced tea; a touch sweet, perhaps, but clean and cool. "The Headless...
Prayers could have easily been wrapped into the Reader. But only the chapter titled "Mojave" is included, because Capote decided it did not fit the novel's scheme. Had he lived, he would have probably dropped "La Cote Basque" from Prayers as well. It is an independent contrivance stuck to the end of the book, where it pads about 40 pages onto an already slim offering...
...second novel, the former Bad Boy of Tennis again displays an intimate knowledge of the international tournament scene and an insensitivity to the niceties of plot and narrative. This time out the protagonist, Istvan Horwat, is an East European champion who conquers Wimbledon and women until a little orphan forces him to abandon the Egomania Open. She is Natasha Kotany, the daughter of friends killed in a plane crash. Under Horwat's avuncular gaze, the girl blossoms into a beautiful woman and a court phenom. One night she astonishes him, if no one else, by inquiring, "Haven't you understood...
Truman Capote' s unfinished Answered Prayers is a sad coda to a once brilliant career. -- A comic novel on the throes of mid- life...