Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote

A Review By Lisa Heidle

In 1948, fifty-seven years before Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toby Jones would resurrect Truman Capote with lisping and drawling syntax for this generation, Other Voices, Other Rooms was published, casting light on one of the 20^th centuries most controversial and engaging writers.

Being a Capote fan, I picked up Other Voices, Other Rooms, a self-admitted semi-autobiographical account of Capote’s childhood, expecting the same quirky, on the fringe characters that grace the majority of the man’s work, and wasn’t disappointed. Joel Knox, a thirteen-year-old boy who has recently lost his mother, is sent to live with the father he’s never known. Once arriving in the small town of Noon City, Capote inundates Joel with a cast of misfits who are as hungry for a new witness to their eccentric behavior as Joel is for a place to belong. He is driven to Skully’s Landing, his father’s home, by Jesus Fever, a hundred year old dwarf, is greeted by Miss Amy, his father’s mentally unstable wife as she beats a bluejay to death with a poker, and befriends the traumatized housekeeper, Zoo, whose only wish in life is to see snow.

The novel was even more compelling due to its autobiographical nature. Capote dances Joel to the edge of each budding relationship, only to pull him back before anything that can’t be undone is acted upon. Each time he narrowly escapes being emotionally marred, I couldn’t help but envision a young Truman, as naïve and hapless as the young Joel, sidestepping the mental and emotional miscreants he had been placed in the care of. When Joel becomes friends with the local wild child Idabel, we assume a sweet romance will develop between the two, but Capote reminds us that no one truly knows the heart of another when we learn Idabel is in love with the Miss Wisteria, a small person from the traveling side-show. After meeting cousin Randolph flitting through the pages in silk pajamas and ringlet curls, I had a better understanding of what Capote meant when he stated after rereading the novel that his “self-deception was unpardonable.”

My image of Capote that has been created over the years, a crudely drawn caricature in an open silk robe, thick, black-framed glasses engulfing a round face, a martini glass in one hand, notebook and pen in the other, has been replaced after reading Other Voices, Other Rooms. An unaffected version, full of curiosity and want, now shadows the man, gifting readers with an insight into the resourceful spirit and fledgling imagination of one of America’s rare, first-rate storytellers.