How Wonderful It Is to Be So Moved: A Conversation with Sarah Krasnostein
The most truthful we can be in a factual genre is to doubt the attainability of fact at all.
...more
Posts Tagged: Truman Capote
Lingering on Darkness: Sleepovers by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
When Ashleigh Bryant Phillips lets loose, she can shock.
...more
What to Read When You Want to Curl Up with a Good Book
Rumpus editors share their favorite winter reads.
...more
The Logic of the Book: Talking with Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich discusses The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, the importance of narrative structure, and the difference between facts and stories.
...more
Peeping under the Goddamn Door: The Price of Empathy in S-Town
[F]or the first time, I really see the tradeoffs between privacy and honest-to-god, up-close empathy.
...more
Say Everything: The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Truth is complicated, thorny, and often paradoxical. Marzano-Lesnevich advocates for a version of events that doesn’t attempt to simplify its subjects, that doesn’t reduce human life to weak metaphors.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Mila Jaroniec
Mila Jaroniec talks about her debut novel Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover,” writing autofiction, the surprising similarity between selling sex toys and selling books, and the impact of having a baby on editing.
...more
The Last Book I Loved: So Long, See You Tomorrow
By drawing us into his childhood, Maxwell shows us how to revisit our own. We become the storytellers of our own lives.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Charles Bock
Charles Bock discusses his new novel, Alice & Oliver, the challenges of writing from experience, and how art and life can mirror one another.
...moreRemembering In Cold Blood
To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, David Hayes and Sarah Weinman discuss what makes the book, as well as Capote’s other works, so remarkable: For centuries we’ve been enraptured and revolted, thrilled and petrified, by crime stories and what meaning they might have. So no wonder Truman […]
...moreWhat Could Have Been
For the New York Times, Alexandra Alter explores how Truman Capote and Harper Lee’s childhood friendship influenced their work, and wonders if the famous duo’s careers would have developed differently if their relationship wasn’t “strained by bitterness and rivalry.”
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Thomas H. McNeely
Thomas H. McNeely discusses coming of age in the 1970s, Houston’s complicated racial history, and his new novel Ghost Horse.
...moreWord of the Day: Silvicide
(n.); a special pesticide intended for killing unwanted trees and other brush It was the kind of horrific end no one could have imagined for the demure Harkey matriarch … her death represented the final, sordid unraveling of one of the oldest lineages in Central Texas—the story of a family tree rotted through by the […]
...moreTrue Lies
At Salon, Laura Miller covers a recent update in the ongoing criticism of—and legal proceedings involving—Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Ronald Nye, the son of Harold Nye, a former agent for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who has since died, can finally publish his father’s documents. These notes that he kept during the case present […]
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Alex Dimitrov and Kate Durbin
Alex Dimitrov and Kate Durbin interview each other about place and poetics and poetry in performance, as well as poetry in LA and New York, and using culture as a prop.
...more
Where Nothing Bad Can Happen
Monica Drake on Nordstrom vs. Goodwill, the blues vs. the mean reds, and one tantalizing sweater.
...more“I’ll wait while they read it”
There is much more to Truman Capote than just being the man behind Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. Beyond the slow, warbling flamboyant character that has been portrayed in the movies, he was one of the last self-invented writers. His formal education stopped at high school, and his only employment experience was a […]
...moreCapote Fans’ Prayers Answered
Buried treasure has been unearthed at the New York Public Library: six unpublished pages of Truman Capote’s unfinished novel Answered Prayers. They’re from a chapter called “Yachts and Things,” and you can read them in this month’s Vanity Fair. If you read the online version, you get to see Capote’s handwriting and strikeouts, but if […]
...more“Who the hell is interested, anyway?”
In 1957, Truman Capote had done it again. Written for The New Yorker, “The Duke in His Domain” dissolved the absolute mystery surrounding Marlon Brando. And of course, it was Capote, and The New Yorker, so the writing was rich as chocolate cake, and the source unquestionable. Douglas McCollam writes about the pivotal event, and about the incredible […]
...morePlease Stop Yelling: An Openly Subjective Review of The Lifespan of a Fact
Essayist John D’Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal co-wrote a book called The Lifespan of a Fact. I have read every review about the book since. It seems that Lifespan isn’t being reviewed, but instead a status quo is being swiftly and aggressively defended.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #45: Chloe Caldwell in Conversation with Sarah Kilborne
I interviewed author, Sarah Kilborne, who lives in the same town as I do, Hudson, New York, and takes banjo lessons downstairs in my father’s music store that I live above. We had dinner a few months ago, where I picked her brain about the writing life, and we both overate pasta. It struck me […]
...moreHow Well Do You Know Truman Capote?
Truman Capote’s social celebrity is a defining feature of his legacy—it added another element to his literary prowess and his visible lifestyle was definitely a point of contention for people. Many people had things to say about his lifestyle, and he had his opinions to offer in return. Inspired by this, is a Truman Capote […]
...more