Reviewed by Jeanne
This is a collection of three of Truman Capote’s short stories, although they draw heavily on Capote’s own childhood for inspiration. It’s a mix of autobiography and fiction, just as his most famous work In Cold Blood is a “non-fiction novel.”
Whether you take them as truth or fiction, Capote gets to deliver a lot of emotional truths in these stories. In “A Christmas Memory,” he and Sook, the elderly cousin who is his best friend, set out to make their annual gifts of fruitcakes for people. Not just family, but for President Roosevelt, for the postman, for anyone they feel merits a fruitcake. They save their money all year long to buy what they need to finish the cakes. It’s a beautifully wrought story, filled with all the details to make it come alive and to make the reader recall his or her own childhood Christmases—not the toys so much but the excitement, the giving, and the wonderful secrets and surprises.
The second story, “One Christmas,” has the young narrator being sent to visit his father for the holiday. The man is largely a stranger, since he and the boy’s mother divorced when the child was two, and he lives in the city of New Orleans. The boy has grown up with his mother’s relations in rural Alabama so the city is quite a shock. Frightened, a bit angry, and lonely for Sook, the child does all he can to make the visit a short one. His observations, now filtered from an adult perspective, are both poignant and pointed.
Finally, “The Thanksgiving Visitor” tells the story of a bully who made the boy’s life a misery growing up. Things come to head when Sook invited the bully to Thanksgiving dinner, and valuable lessons are learned.
This isn’t to say that any of the stories are in the least preachy or sanctimonious. The emotions they evoke are always relatable, sharply observed, and they resonate with the reader.
All these stories are finely crafted and memorable, no matter the season.
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