There, I’ve said it.  Yes, I know he was a duplicitous little drunk, but he was one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, and I only wish I could write like he did.

He wrote several books, all of which I’ve read.  He wrote for magazines, worked on movie scripts, and wrote some of the best short stories ever.  A Thanksgiving Visitor and A Christmas Memory as examples.

But, his most famous work was In Cold Blood.

Published in 1966, it was billed as the first non-fiction novel.  The book is based on a “true crime”, the murder of a Kansas family.  The family of Herbert Clutter was murdered on this date in 1959.  Two of his daughters escaped the murders because they no longer lived at home.

A shocking, brutal event, the family’s murder shook the town of Holcomb, Kansas to its core.

When Capote heard of the bloody deaths in Kansas, he decided to write a short story for The New Yorker magazine.  He left for Kansas, with Harper Lee, his best friend, in tow.

After reviewing notes, Tru decided to turn it into a book.  After all, there were 8,000 pages of notes!

It was the book that made him a millionaire, a household name, and an A-List star.

Once ICB was published, people rushed to read his other works which included Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Glass Harp.  Tiffany’s was made into a great movie with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, and the Glass Harp became a Broadway Play.

Truman was big.  Oh, he was only five feet three inches tall, but he was a super-star, “enfant terrible”, and a coveted party guest.

And he loved to party.

Openly Gay in a time when being so was an eyebrow raiser, he adopted the mantra of the Duchess of Windsor, “never complain, never explain.”

He did not go lightly on the “complain” part.

Capote grew Up next door to Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama.  Born in New Orleans as Truman Streckfus Perkins, he was reared by relatives, both crazy and sane, who would later fill his literary works with wonderful characters.

Note to family:  be careful.

He changed his name to Truman Garcia Capote when his mother married her last husband.

Harper Lee based the character Dill in To Kill A  Mockingbird on Truman.

But, back to Kansas.

Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged for the Clutter family murders. But until the executions, Capote had almost unlimited access to the men.  He was able to pull information from Smith about both men and about the murders the prosecutors could not uncover.  It gave Truman the information he needed to write one of the most harrowing books ever written.

The two men, Hickock and Smith, had an intense psychological relationship.  Capote was able to uncover it, and use it for his benefit.

And benefit he did.

Tom Wolfe, the other great Southern writer (The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff, The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test, and more) said, “The book is neither a who-done-it nor a will-they-be-caught, since the answers to both questions are known from the outset … Instead, the book’s suspense is based largely on a totally new idea in detective stories: the promise of gory details, and the withholding of them until the end.”

He’s so right.

The crime was a robbery gone mad.  The killers had planned to rob Clutter, a wealthy man whom they had heard kept $10,000 in his house.  There was no money in the home.  Clutter paid for everything on old fashioned charge accounts, and wrote checks once a month.  He even bought his chewing gum on credit.

The theory is that Hickock went crazier when there was no cash, and wanted to leave no witnesses. Smith is portrayed by Capote as the reluctant killer who was remorseful.  Many insist that Capote had fallen for Smith and was trying to put him in a better light.

Capote was not above lying, he deceived both men to get facts and data, but he earnestly hoped they would be executed, and did not complete the book until both men were dead.

The book changed American literature, changed Capote’s life, and sent him on a downward spiral of alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression.

Oddly enough, the assignment from the magazine was a matter of choice.  Capote was offered the Clutter story, or he could follow a New York house keeper around for a day, and write about that.  He took the Clutter story because he thought it would be easier.

Well now!

But he did do the maid piece later on.

The book, though 45 years old is still relevant today, and is an eerie read.  I’ve probably read it six or seven times.  Like I said, I’m a huge Capote fan.

A couple of summers ago, I rented both Capote and Infamous, the two movies based on the research and writing of the book.  I also read a bio of Truman, and as I read the book, I stopped and read what Truman was writing at that point in his life.  I know, it’s crazy, but it’s part of my crazy.

BTW, I like Infamous much better than Capote, but, alas, Capote won all the awards.

So, if you’re looking for good reads, check out Capote’s work.  Ok, Answered Prayers is crap, but his mind was wasted by drugs, booze, and mental illness by then. He lost most of his friends with that book, and even pissed off Jackie O and her sister, Lee Radziwill!

And as usual, the original point of my post today has been lost in the details.

52  years ago today a family died.  Needlessly, brutally, and senselessly.

And a lot of people got rich off of it.

She said, and I’m quoting here, so don’t get pissed at me, “Well, I hate an Indian giver. Don’t you? I mean, it’s a gift. Keep your gift.”  She was referring to the $2 million diamond engagement ring that ‘what’s his name’ gave the ‘pretty one’.

OOPS!

I personally don’t think Kris Jenner is a racist, and a large part of me says this is much ado about nothing.  Quite frankly, she was using a term that is a part of the American Lexicon, one I’ve used in the past, as a child.  Offensive or not, it’s a national colloquialism.

Her comments should come as no surprise.  Spoiled, thoughtless, rich, vacuous, vapid, vain, and vexing; Kris reared a passel of ninnies who are more greedy than anyone I’ve ever known.

The term Indian Giver is very, very old.  It came into play around 1765.  A term is used to define someone who gives a gift and then takes it back;  it is based, incorrectly on the idea that the Native Americans gave gifts to the Europeans, (English, Dutch, French, and Spanish) who came to the New World, and then stole them back.

The Indian Giver term implies that Native Americans don’t keep their word, when in fact, the US Government broke every treaty they forced the Native Americans to sign.

The connotation comes from different ways of  ”doing business” between the Whites (yes, Spanish people are Caucasian) and the “Redman”.

BTW, Redman, they don’t like that term either.  And it really wasn’t a new world, it was just new to the Euros who thought the world was flat, were happy they didn’t fall off the edge, and also mistakenly thought they were in India, as in the Sub-Continent.  OOPS!  The REAL Indians don’t like that one.

I just keep getting in deeper and deeper here.

The Indians had no concept of cash, money, or scrip.  They bartered.   Gifts from them were a form of trade.  They expected something in return for what they gave away.  When they didn’t get something back, they repossessed it.

This practice was insulting to the Europeans, gifts weren’t for trade, they were gifts!

By the 1880s, the term had morphed into meaning that once a gift was given and it was taken back by the giver, the giver became an Indian Giver.  It was actually in the dictionary.

So, it’s not a pretty term, it’s generally used thoughtlessly but with no harm intended.

Prostitution isn’t a pretty term either, but she didn’t mention that one.  You know, the term that refers to sex in trade for money, cash, gifts, etc.

So, this Monday morning, all the Indians are UP in arms about the slur.  They probably should let it go, and realize from whence it came.  Kris should know better, and remember that SHE put herself into the national spotlight with a Family Reality Television show, and is now subject to scrutiny of a higher degree.

We may be able to tolerate her daughter’s sex tape, fits, and tantrums, but we can’t tolerate racial slurs;  intentional or not!

The term is racist, and the Native Americans are on the war-path.  I’m sure they are ready to tell her to “Kiss my ass at Wounded Knee.”*

As to returning gifts, what about the wedding gifts?  72 days of ‘wedded bliss’ does not account for a marriage, it’s a sham, and frankly, every thing should go back.

But, alas, I’ll probably never see that classy toilet bowl brush I sent.  Oh well, it was on sale anyway!

*My apologies to Dee Brown, but it was just too much fun not to use!  And it’s a great book, you might want to check it out!

I’ve finished another book.  I’m sure you’re bored with my book reviews, but I love reading, and I love telling people about things I’ve read.  It’s not an “I’m more well-read than you thing”, it’s just that I love to share the joy.

That’s what I do, spread joy and love and peace everywhere I go!

(pause for riotous laughter to die down)

But, nonetheless, I’ve finished reading Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove.

And, no, I did not make those names UP.

Judith Tarr is quite the prolific writer, and is best known for her fantasy books.    She’s also a Latin scholar, and taught Latin at Wesleyan University for a few years.

Turtledove writes in several genres; sci-fi, historical fiction, alternate history, and more.  He’s even more prolific than Ms. Tarr.

I don’t read a great deal of fantasy, as in great deal meaning – none at all.

However, a customer, who owned a book store (damn you Kindle) recommended the book to me while we were taking care of some business at “that place where I work”.

It sounded intriguing, and I thought I’d pick it UP.

The main character, Nicole Gunther-Perrin, a lawyer in the 20th Century is having the worst day of her life.  Her ex-husband is being a total AOTW, her kids are sick, her child care provided had to go back to Mexico, she’s been passed over for promotion, hit on by the boss, and she’s just had it.

So, in passing before she lay her weary self down to sleep she looks at a plaque of Liber and Libera, the god and goddess of wine, which she picked UP on her honeymoon, touches it and says, “I wish I’d lived in your time, things had to be more simple.”

Well they weren’t.  And she found out the hard way.  She got her wish!

Beautifully written, historically accurate, and well researched, Household Gods is a great escape!

I was even able to ignore the lunch room roving reporter while reading it at work!

Check it out.  You’ll have to get it on line, because they don’t carry it in sadly few remaining ruined by kindle and bad service bookstores.  I may have mentioned that before.

A Lacuna is simply a gap.  Not the store, but a real gap in time, in space, in the earth.

Set in Mexico and Asheville, NC, this novel covers the life of a fictional fiction writer named Harrison Shepherd.

American by birth, his Mexican mother takes him to Mexico after leaving her husband.  Harrison takes the reader with him though history, drama, and love…of sorts.  Along the way we get to meet Diego Garcia and Frida Kahlo, Trotsky and more.  Garcia and Kahlo were “active” communists, what ever that means.  In reality, they were lousy communists;  seriously,  they were really bad at it.  Maids, drivers, cooks, servants, lots of money, fame, they were rock stars avowing communism and living a life of luxury.  This, of course, is not Ms. Kingsolver’s point, but she makes it nonetheless!

Harrison says in the book, “The most important thing about a person is the thing you don’t know.”  And that’s so true.  Not only in the book, but in life as well.

I’m a big Barbara Kingsolver fan, I’ve read most of her published work.

The Lacuna takes you from the early part of the 20th century through the McCarthyism of the 1950s.    She paints a picture of the characters, both real and fictional, as if she had watched them surreptitiously. You, the reader, along with Ms. Kingsolver are the proverbial fly on the wall.  Ms Kingsolver isn’t subtle. Her points are well taken, and her beliefs transparent. She doesn’t shy away from controversy.

But she can really, really write a great novel.  And this is a beautiful read.

It’s a must read!

Each time, I always try to make it personal to them, make it memorable, and pleasant. 

I probably don’t always succeed at that last one, but I do try.

And I always try to take something away from the moment in time.

Recently, a customer came in with his daughter who was making a purchase.  While going through the paperwork required, we chatted.  I do that, paperwork is about as boring as anything I can come UP with, so I try to make it interesting. 

I usually ask things like “What kind of work do you do?”, or something along those lines.

The Dad in this situation, after the daughter told me she was in the Navy, spoke UP and said, “I’m a writer.”

My ears perked UP.

He proceeded to tell me about his book.

The book is called, We’re All Ice Cream, and it’s a children’s book.

The story is about an Ice Cream Cone on his way to the Great Ice Cream Convention.  He meets new friends along the way, discovers differences, and finds out that we’re all the same after all.

It’s a great childrens’ book and is beautifully illustrated by Martinez Garcias.

The author, Eric Simmons, resides in Lawrenceville, GA, and is the father of of three children.

He’s been married – OMG to the same woman – for  26 years.  He’s a tennis player, photographer, and computer devotee.

Originally from Los Angeles California, he moved with his family to Georgia in 1993.  It was one of the worst Winters on record. 

Eric is even “more almost famous” than I am.  He’s been on TV!  He got to play basketball with one of the LA Lakers and was coached for 15 minutes by Pat Riley.  He says his claim to fame is that he’s been on 5 TV Games Show and 1 Home Make-Over show (While You Were Out).

I say his claim to fame is We’re All Ice Cream.

You can “like” it on Facebook if you want, and you can purchase the book by clicking here.  And frankly, I hope you do.  I can’t imagine a kid on the planet who wouldn’t love it, and doesn’t need it!

Oh, yeah, I was on TV once.  My Journalism class went to see Phil Donohue in Dayton, and I got to ask Agnes Moorehead a question.  So, maybe I’m almost famous too!

Check the book out!  You’ll love it.

* I am NOT being compensated for this post.

I don’t hold grudges.  Some might not agree with that, but really, I eventually get over just about every thing.

Ok, so I’m still a little miffed at my first grade teacher for telling me my name was spelled wrong, when I knew it was right, just because I used all caps!

And, Ok, I’m still annoyed, just a tad, at my third grade teacher for being just about the meanest teacher ever. 

But, my being mad at them never bothered them, and since they are both long in the grave, I’m sure they have other things to ponder.

Forgiving is proabably one of the keys to happiness.

Well, that and a winning Power-Ball ticket.

Years ago, when my family had gone through a really tough time with a group of ingrates, I had a hard time letting go.

It wasn’t bothering them, but it was killing me.

Hate and grudges are self-debilitating emotions.  They eat at you and they do nothing to the person or persons with whom you hold said grudge.

There are some things, ok, most things, that you just need to let go.

Some therapy might be required, and some serious reflection, but you have to let it go.

One of the things that helped me was a book by Dr. Charles Stanley.  Yes, I know, he’s a TV preacher, and I frankly don’t watch TV preachers.  Most of them are annoying, and some are fake, but let’s face it, how much “reality” is on TV.  At any rate, Dr. Stanley’s book did help me to think about why and whom I needed to forgive.

It’s a place to start.

What ever route you take, take a right on Forgiveness, it will do you good.

And, to the very wise woman who said that to me, and you know who you are…Thanks, it did me a world of good.

I will have to admit, I do.

Judge books by their covers, that is.

I’ve bought several books just because I thought the title would look good on the book shelf.  Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway come to mind.  They are both funny, funny books, and always start a conversation when someone sees them.

So, while on my last trip to Border’s, again darn that kindle, I saw a book that had a tacky, tacky cover.  I didn’t like to title, I assumed it was a romance novel, and I walked on by.  But, as luck would have it, I came back that way and realized that it was written by Robert Hicks.  Hicks wrote The Widow of The South, a great read about the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee in the War Between The States, and the woman who buried over a thousand soldiers in her front yard after the battle.

Hicks is a “tad” obsessed with Confederate General John Bell Hood.  And he’d have to be to write this well about him.  Hood was known as “the butcher of Franklin” and was a rush to judgement kind of guy, so he’d probably be ok with my not picking the book UP the first time around. 

Hicks’ new book, A Separate County is surprisingly good.  The sophomore work of a writer is generally a big let down, but A Separate County may actually be better than the first book.

It’s sort of a sequel, but you don’t have to read the first one to get the second one.  So, I guess it’s really not a sequel, just some of the characters are the same.

A Separate Country is about Hood’s life after “The War”.  He moved to New Orleans hoping to blend in, be an unknown, and make a new life for himself.  Well, he had to settle for one out of three. 

He had a new life.  Battered and maimed from “The War”, (he lost the use of his left arm at Gettysburg, and, at the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. )  he marries a young white creole named Anna Marie Hennen and they proceed to go forth and multiply.  Eleven kids in ten years, three sets of twins, and I’m guessin’ he was making UP for lost time during the war.

The book is written from three points of view.  Eli Griffin, the main narator is given a charge by the dying Hood, and sets off to do for the man what he could never do for himself.  The rest of the book is from the writings of Hood and his wife.  Hood’s are diaries, Anna Marie’s are letters to her oldest daughter. 

There were nights when I could not stop reading, and as the action progressed, I found myself not wanting it to end.  The characters are great, seedy, merciless, complicated and conflicted.  There’s even a dwarf!  And who doesn’t love a dwarf?

So, don’t let the tacky Belva Plain cover fool you, the Miami Herald reviewer said it was “marvelous”, and they were right!  It’s on my list of “re-reads”.

You can find out more about Robert Hicks and his work at www.robert-hicks.com

…but, this one…

I’ve seen the movie Giant, I’ve seen the movie So Big, I’ve seen Showboat, Cimmaron, Dinner At Eight, and Ice Palace, but I never paid attention to Edna Ferber.

What a miss!

After re-watching Giant for the umpty-umpth time the weekend after Elizabeth Taylor died, I thought, “Hey, you like to read, why don’t you read some Edna Ferber?”

So I did.

I bought SoBig and Giant.

And I’m glad I did.

Ferber, an American literary giant, was part of the Algonquin Round Table and helped to shape American Literature in the early part of the 20th Century.

The first book won Ms. Ferber the Pulitizer Prize.  On the surface, it’s about a Dutch High Pararie family and community out side of Chicago, and the cultured young woman who comes to teach their children, falls in love with a big lug of a farmer, and becomes part of their community.  But, really it’s about her and how she reared her son after becoming a widow.  And how she taught him to become the man he was supposed to be in spite of himself.

It’s a great book, a good read, and I highly recommend it.

It has a message, it’s literature, but it isn’t preachy.

Giant, though it didn’t win a Pulitzer, is an even better book.  Texas:  big and bold at it’s best.

I’m glad I saw the movie first, for even though it follows the story closely, Hollywood changed a few facts, cast people who look nothing like the book’s description of them (except Taylor’s part as Leslie Benedict), and made Jett Rink far far more sympathetic than he was in the book.

It was James Dean’s final film, and one of Rock and Elizabeth’s best.  Mercedes McCambridge plays Bick’s sister and was nominated for an Academy award.  She’s mean and hateful, and you love to hate her!

Giant and SoBig are both great reads, and Ferber’s descriptions of places, people, and events bring you to them.  She knew her craft, knew her characters, and new her challenge. 

They are “must reads” as far as I’m concerned.

I’m sure your local libray has them.  If they don’t, it’s not a real library!!

I’ve really, really enjoyed it.

Here are a few from my July list you may have tried, or may like to read. 

The Adventurers by Harold Robbins.  Written in the 1960s, before Harold got lazy, the book is long, complex, full of characters and plot twists, and a tad on the raunchy side.  One of my readers once said, “I love a good dirty book!”  I can’t remember who that was, but, and I think she lives in S. Florida, this one’s for you!

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.  It’s his first installment of the new trilogy.  OK, I don’t usually read series books, but this one is great, hopefully he’ll keep the next two books, projected to be out in 2012 (assuming the Mayans are wrong) and 2014, as interesting.  The first book is over 700 pages.  But, a great story with complex characters with lives that intertwine.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  So I’m the last person in America to pick it UP!  I thought at first that it would be a total chick lit book, and almost passed.  But, I’m glad I didn’t stop reading.  Great story, great love story, sleazy characters who make you cringe and like them at the same time.  She puts the book together with ins and outs from one man’s life and takes the reader and the character back in time with a whip-lash to the present.  If you love the circus, you’ll love the book.

Nemesis by Peter Evans.  I love a good conspiracy theory, and this is a good one.  I won’t spoil it, but it’s about the “relationship” between Jackie O, Aristotle Onassis, and Bobby Kennedy.  Here’s a tip, they really didn’t like each other.  If 1/3 of the stuff in this book is true, and the writer seems to have the goods and facts to back it UP, holy crap!  It changes things a ‘tad’.  Not for everyone, but it’s gossipier than Kitty Kelly ever wished she was, and full of headlines I remember…so naturally, I loved it.

And of course, most recently, I finally bought a copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Ok, again, last person in America to read it, but I really paid little attention to it because the title made me think, “Oh, inspirational, self-help, how to make myself a better person”…stuff I have no interest in!  And I passed it by, ignored the reviews, and forgot about it. 

Then I saw the movie trailer!  Emma Stone (Easy A)…I don’t care who she plays or how miscast she is, I’ll go.  She’s UP there with Jessica Lange, Reese Witherspoon, and J-Lo.  They can’t make a bad movie Jersey Girl aside.  So, if they’re in it, I’ll go.

Once I realized it was a novel and not some useless self-help who moved my cheese crap, I bought it.  Border’s was having a sale after all.  You may have heard.  Damn that kindle!

There are moments when I think it should have been called the Do Everythings, because they were more than help.  A pampered, vapid, vain, silly, and pathetic bunch of women who can’t do anything but piss and moan are tended to and have their children cared for by people they don’t even like in this book, and the writer tells the story well.

It’s awesome.  Now, I’ll have to take exception to all the comparisons to To Kill A Mockingbird.  That’s heresey.  And I”m sure that as flattered as Ms. Stockett might be at the comparison, she knows better.  TKAM changed the way we think.  And Harper Lee was amazingly smart, had a vocabulary far beyond her years, and had a great story to tell, witht a great point to make.

Ms. Stockett does that too.  But, again, she, as good as she is, knows as well as every other writer, published or not, she’s no Harper Lee.   For Pete’s sake, I know I’m no Harper Lee, and I’m my biggest fan!

We’d love to be, but lightning only strikes once!

Back to the book, it’s wonderful.  Again, a chick book, sorry guys, but I like them.  And it’s literature.  Well written, well paced, and well thought out. 

As I read on and on, I waited for the come-uppance, and I waited for the main characters to win.  And as the book came to an end, I was at first displeased with the ending, just as I was with H2O for Elephants.  But when I thought about it.  It had to end that way, because IT had to end. 

Read it, you’ll get what I mean.

Summer’s not over until September regardless of what the school board says, so keep reading, and let me know what else I should read!

And for the love of Gregory Peck, pick UP a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird if you haven’t read it!

He would have been 103.

Fleming, the father of the James Bond books, was an English aristocrat.

His UPper class family was shocked by his books.

They were also shocked by the way he lived.  He lived a littl too hard.

He said, “I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me.  Then I shall have died of living too much.”

He died in 1964, on his son’s 12th birthday.

As much as I love the Bond books, and the Bond movies, I find it especially intriguing that the same man who gave us Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Thunderball, wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!