A Bridge of Childhood: Truman Capote's Southern Years [Hardcover]

Marianne M. Moates (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The young Truman Capote who emerges from these amusing recollections by his first cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter, and freelance writer Moates is quick-witted, scheming, mercurial, a born leader in the mischievous escapades of a trio that included their tomboyish next-door neighbor Harper ("Nellie") Lee, who later wrote To Kill a Mockingbird . Capote, abandoned by his mother to the care of relatives in Monroeville, Ala., as a small boy, found a maternal substitute in Carter's mother Mary Ida. Redolent with down-home flavor, these modest yet revealing tales deal with such matters as a fight with the town bully, bootlegging by Capote's father, exhuming a skeleton from a graveyard and a beach outing. Carter contends that relatives and friends alike failed Capote by not providing love and understanding. In her extensive introduction, Moates offers a contrasting view, asserting that Capote adapted to the role of family oddball. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- Moates skillfully retells the humorous, poignant, affectionate, and nostalgic reminiscences of Truman Capote's cousin and boyhood chum, Jennings Faulk Carter. Each chapter is flavored with anecdotes that shed light on Capote's character and on details that appear in his published fiction. Readers will also gain insight into the classic, To Kill a Mockingbird , whose author, Nelle Harper Lee, was a neighborhood cohort of the two boys, and who appears in most of the tales. Carter's memories draw colorful portraits of several eccentric Faulk kin and also re-create life in a small Southern town during the 1930s. -- Alice Conlon, University of Houston
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (December 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080500971X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805009712
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,109,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and Charming, October 3, 2002

By 

Diego Banducci (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bridge of Childhood: Truman Capote's Southern Years (Hardcover)

Essentially the recollections of Truman Capote's cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter, this book recounts the childhood years that Truman spent in Monroeville, Alabama growing up with Jennings and Nelle Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird." It contains descriptions of actual events that appear in Capote's later writings, and thus will be of interest to readers of his fiction, but the writing is pleasurable in its own right.

Fascinated by the number of good writers who have come out of such a small town (there are others), I drove two hours each way to visit Monroeville while on a business trip to Mobile several years ago. Even though it has grown substantially since Truman grew up there, it remains a lovely southern town, with wide verandas, shade trees and a courthouse that is not to be missed.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This account of Capote's early years-funny and also sad, November 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Bridge of Childhood: Truman Capote's Southern Years (Hardcover)

I was drawn to this book because the man who provided these anecdotes about Capote's early years to the author, Marianne Moates, is my first cousin, Jennings Faulk Carter. He is Capote's first cousin also. The stories told by Carter mostly came on summer visits to his Alabama home by young Truman Capote who was partly raised by divorced parents in New Orleans and New York and his eccentric aunts and uncles in Monroeville, Alabama. There are many accounts of the childhood experiencenes of the threesome-Jennings Carter, Truman Capote and Nell Harper Lee("To Kill a Mockingbird") Although some of the stories are hilarious, there is an underlying theme of brokenness, divorce, and alcohol abuse that shaped young Truman Capote into a talented but confused, effiminate, alcoholic homosexual. The book was more interesting to me for the simple fact that it deals with some of my relatives and some of my childhool memories. I am saddened, however, that many of Truman Capote's adult problems seem to have come from a childhood full of strife, mistrust, conflict, substance abuse and family instabiliy.

5.0 out of 5 stars ENTERTAINING, EASY READING, January 26, 2007

By 

Avid Reader (Winter Haven, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bridge of Childhood: Truman Capote's Southern Years (Hardcover)

While I am not particularly a fan of Truman Capote's writing, I found this book to be highly entertaining. It gives a true and accurate account of life in small-town Alabama and is filled with humorous tales of the escapades of three young friends during the Great Depression. It is also a moving and poignant tale of a young boy's struggle to belong, and offers insight into the eccentricities of Mr. Capote. The stories are short, so this book makes for good reading when time is short (like during break-time at work!). I think this book would be entertaining to people from small towns as well as large cities, and Capote fans as well as non-Capote fans.