Truman Capote Biography

Truman Capote was a well-known American author who was known for his “attitude” in his short stories. His dark psychological themes in his early fiction caused him to be characterized as one of the best Southern Gothic writers in American literature (World Biography). Most of Capote’s works were written in his earlier years and focused on his dark childhood, however some were humorous. Capote was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 30, 1924. He was the son of Archulus Persons and Lillie Mae Persons, who named him “Truman Streckfus Persons” at birth however he had it legally changed when his mother remarried years later. After his parents divorced when he was about four years old, he travelled South with his mother, where she would
He was producing skilled work by age fifteen, although he kept his work to himself. Eventually he made his work public, and published his first short story when he was nineteen years old. He never desired to go to college to fulfill his writing career. Capote told his close friends “If I’m a writer, fine; if I‘m not, no professor on Earth is going to make me one” (Contemporary). Because he didn’t attend college, Capote chose to work as a newspaper clipper and a cartoon cataloger at the New Yorker. This job, however, ended after two years because he fell asleep during a reading by Frost, who quickly displayed his anger by throwing what he was reading at Truman Capote’s head. Over the next few years, the great Truman Capote experienced a downfall. It seemed as though there were many bad things happening to him at once. He became involved with a married man, who caused him to increase his drinking and drug taking; he also almost died in a car accident, which instigated even more drug abuse. Truman began to think he could not take any more stress, and he retreated to the home of his old friend, Joanne Carson, and passed away there in 1984 from liver disease caused by drug intoxication