This slim volume contains three gems: “A Christmas Memory,” “One Christmas” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor.” “A Christmas Memory” shows Capote’s childhood in rural Alabama in the 1930s. “One Christmas” revolves around a six-year-old narrator who is the child of divorced parents. The boy travels to New Orleans by bus to spend Christmas with his father. In the last story, “The Thanksgiving Visitor” Miss Sook, Capote’s cousin, invites the school bully to Thanksgiving dinner one year and tells what happened. For a little 100-page book, A Christmas Memory packs plenty of surprises and delights. GRADE: A
I’ve read the first one and the last one. Good stuff.
Too many people only know Truman Capote from IN COLD BLOOD and his ditzy TV performances, Bill. He wrote plenty of wonderful short stories and memoirs.
I read THE COMPLETE STORIES OF TRUMAN CAPOTE in 2004. I’d also recommend another of his short books, A HOUSE IN THE HEIGHTS, a memoir of his time living in Brooklyn Heights.
I’ll be looking for A HOUSE IN THE HEIGHTS, Jeff.
I’ve read “A Christmas Memory” and have the vague idea it was made into a film of some sort.?.
Yes, Rick, there was a film: A Christmas Memory DVD / The Thanksgiving Visitor DVD (1966/1967/Region 1) in Color! Geraldine Page, Donny Melvin.
Geraldine Page (in an Emmy-winning performance) stars in the original versions of Truman Capote’s holiday classics. A Christmas Memory recalls the child Buddy and his friend from long ago, the aging but wide-eyed innocent Sook . She takes Buddy roaming in search of pecans, candied cherries, and moonshine to make fruitcakes as gifts for all their friends and relatives. Despite the hardships of rural Alabama, they share a special bond as the season grows bright and merry with meager means. They not-so-secretly fashion gifts for each other, but none more precious than their love and companionship. The follow-up story, The Thanksgiving Visitor, finds Sook and Buddy struggling to realize their many blessings when a schoolyard bully makes an unexpected appearance.