I truthfully feel none of us have anyone to blame for whatever we have done with our own personal lives. It has been proven that at the age of 7 most of us have reached the age of reason -- which means we do, at this age, understand & know the difference between right & wrong. Of course -- environment plays an awfully important part in our lives such as the Convent in mine & in my case I am grateful for that influence. In Jimmy's case -- he was the strongest of us all. I remember how he worked & went to school when there was no one to tell him & it was his own WILL to make something of himself. We will never know the reasons for what eventually happened, why he did what he did, but I still hurt thinking of it. It was such a waste. But we have very little control over our human weaknesses, & this applies also to Fern & hundreds of thousands of other people including ourselves -- for we all have weaknesses. In your case -- I don't know what your weakness is but I do feel -- IT IS NO SHAME TO HAVE A DIRTY FACE -- THE SHAME COMES WHEN YOU KEEP IT DIRTY.

--from In Cold Blood

Truman Capote, b. New Orleans, La., Sept. 30, 1924, d. Aug. 25, 1984, was a Southern Gothic novelist, journalist, and celebrated man-about-town. He was widely hailed as a stylist after publication of his earliest writings. These include his novel of alienated youth, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), the Gothic short stories in A Tree of Night (1949), and the lighter novel The Grass Harp (1951; play, 1952). The novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958; film, 1961) introduced the charming, hedonistic Holly Golightly as a heroine. Childhood reflections formed the basis of two short stories that were adapted for television: "A Christmas Memory" (1956) and "The Thanksgiving Visitor" (1968). Capote's so-called nonfiction novel In Cold Blood (1966; film, 1967) was based on a 6-year study of the murder of a rural Kansas family by two young drifters. It created a sensation and enhanced its author's reputation. Capote wrote about the jet set in The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places (1973). Answered Prayers, an unfinished novel, was published posthumously in 1987.

Bibliography: Clarke, Gerald, Capote: A Biography (1988); Garson, Helen S., Truman Capote (1980); Grobel, Lawrence, Conversations with Capote (1986); Rudisill, M., and Simmons, J., Truman Capote (1983); Stanton, Robert J., Truman Capote: A Primary and Secondary Biography (1980).

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