Truman Capote, as obsessed with fame and fortune as with penning great words, was a writer who became as well-known for his late-night talk show appearances as for his prose. With In Cold Blood, Capote advanced a new literary form; the "nonfiction novel," while his most anticipated book was the never-finished Answered Prayers, which was to reveal the regrets of his rich and famous friends. In his best works, Capote "produced a unique verbal music, a blend of shrewdness and sentimentality that revealed human beings as hybrids both baroque and banal," wrote Jack Kroll in Newsweek after Capote's death in 1984.
Capote first gained public attention with the novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), the story of a young man who, unable to find his father and unable to adjust to the real world, falls into a relationship with a decadent transvestite. The book was not nearly as provocative as Capote's dustjacket photo, which showed him reclined on a couch, looking "as if he were dreamily contemplating...