General & Miscellaneous Holidays, Fiction - Holidays & Festivals, Fiction - Religion & Beliefs

A Christmas Memory

Name: A Christmas Memory
Author: Truman Capote
ISBN: 9780375837890

by Truman Capote, Beth Peck

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Overview

First published in 1956, this much sought-after autobiographical recollection of Truman Capote's rural Alabama boyhood has become a modern-day classic. We are proud to be reprinting this warm and delicately illustrated edition of A Christmas Memory—"a tiny gem of a holiday story" (School Library Journal, starred review). Seven-year-old Buddy inaugurates the Christmas season by crying out to his cousin, Miss Sook Falk: "It's fruitcake weather!" Thus begins an unforgettable portrait of an odd but enduring friendship between two innocent souls—one young and one old—and the memories they share of beloved holiday rituals.

A reminiscence of a Christmas shared by a seven-year-old boy and a sixtyish childlike woman, with enormous love and friendship between them.

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

After 50 years, Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory (1956), illus. by Beth Peck, will likely still mesmerize readers. Capote's memoir of the Christmas he spent at age seven with an elderly lady, his only friend, now includes a CD of the book narrated by Celeste Holm. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Truman Capote

When Truman Capote debuted on the New York literary scene in 1948, no one had seen anything quite like him. Capote soon became famous for his intensely readable and nuanced short stories, novels, and novellas, but he was equally famous as a personality, gadfly, and bon vivant -- not to mention as a crime writer. Capote s much-imitated 1965 book, In Cold Blood, all but invented the narrative true-crime genre.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Children's Literature - Sharon Salluzzo

Capote's story of the beautiful and loving relationship between an orphaned boy and an elderly woman is accompanied by fine illustrations that capture both the era and the warmth shared between them. Capote presents one autumn and winter as the two prepare the annual fruitcakes and make homemade gifts for one another. Capote's story was originally published in December 1956 in Mademoiselle magazine. It is a story whose message and language will be appreciated more by adults. The nostalgia and the sadness of the ending will not be for every child. However, for the special older child who is still lucky enough to enjoy listening to a parent or grandparent read, this will affect both deeply. This new edition includes a CD narrated by Celeste Holm whose superb reading adds just the right touch of a Southern accent and completes the fine package.

School Library Journal

Gr 3 Up-- This tiny gem of a holiday story, although a memory, is told in the present tense, which gives it a certain immediacy. Written by Capote as if a backward glance at his childhood while in college, the story traces a month of pre-Christmas doings in his parentless, poor household. The seven-year-old and his ``friend,'' a distant, eccentric, and in those times elderly (mid-sixties), cousin prepare several dozen fruitcakes and mail them to people they admire. Gathering the pecans from those left behind in the harvest, buying illegally made whiskey for soaking the cakes, getting a little tipsy on the leftovers, cutting their own tree, and decorating it with homemade ornaments are some of the adventures the two share. The outside world barely intrudes on this portrayal of a loving friendship which wraps readers in coziness like the worn scrap quilt warms the old woman. Reminiscent of Lisbeth Zwerger, Peck's watercolor-and-ink full-page illustrations greatly enhance the text. Her use of lighter shades, tawny colors, and fine lines plus a background wash which suggests rather than delineates detail is perfect for this holiday memory of Christmas celebrated in rural Alabama in the early 1930s. --Susan Hepler, Arlington Public Library, VA