Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A gift from an unbridled genius. Exciting...irresistible...should be cherished as top-flight work from a master." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

Although Truman Capote's last novel was unfinished at the time of his death, its surviving portions offer a devastating group portrait of the high and low society of his time.

As it follows the career of a writer of uncertain parentage and omnivorous erotic tastes, Answered Prayers careens from a louche bar in Tangiers to a banquette at La Cote Basque, from literary salons to high-priced whorehouses. It takes in calculating beauties and sadistic husbands along with such real-life supporting characters as Colette, the Duchess of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, and Tallulah Bankhead. Above all, this malevolently funny book displays Capote at his most relentlessly observant and murderously witty.

"Prose that makes the heart sing and the narrative fly... inspired." -- The New York Times Book Review -- Review

Review

"A gift from an unbridled genius. Exciting...irresistible...should be cherished as top-flight work from a master." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

Although Truman Capote's last novel was unfinished at the time of his death, its surviving portions offer a devastating group portrait of the high and low society of his time.

As it follows the career of a writer of uncertain parentage and omnivorous erotic tastes, Answered Prayers careens from a louche bar in Tangiers to a banquette at La Cote Basque, from literary salons to high-priced whorehouses. It takes in calculating beauties and sadistic husbands along with such real-life supporting characters as Colette, the Duchess of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, and Tallulah Bankhead. Above all, this malevolently funny book displays Capote at his most relentlessly observant and murderously witty.

"Prose that makes the heart sing and the narrative fly... inspired." -- The New York Times Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 29, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679751823
• ISBN-13: 978-0679751823
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,173 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ACID CAPOTE, April 9, 2006

By	Shannon Deason "SchylarRex" (Houston) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

To read this odd book is to get a real look at Truman Capote at the end of his life. Capote was vain, bitchy, narcissistic, but alas the profoundly weird old queen was fascinating. He was truely unique, he made himself a superstar, he willed it so, this man was nakedly ambitious, he makes Trump look like a piker. This book ruined him and probably led to increased alcoholism, that ultimatly caused his death at sixty. When he wrote an excert of this book in a top magazine of the day, he became persona non grata among the brahman class of New York. This was Capote's own personal hell. It shows his arrogance and narcissism that he did not see that a book like this would make these people close ranks and ostracize him, he was stunned that they stopped taking his calls and dropped him from their party lists, they broke his heart and frankly I'm sure the parties were considerable less amusing with Truman gone. In this book you see in Capote a really unhappy man, that relished in the misfortune of others, but having said that I do find his dish very interesting, what does that say about me, lol. I believe that after he became a sensation after the great In Cold Blood, he really was paralized, he knew people expected another book of singular greatness, I think this absolutely destroyed him and he was so desperate that he conceived this ill advised book, it makes you understand why Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger never published a book after their masterpieces, Truman should have looked to his childhood friend Lee as an example, but he could not resist the spotlight and he wanted that feeling of adulation again. I recommend this book, it is not Capote's best work, of course, but it is something of a memoir and you get an unflinching look at this complex man.

50 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unanswered, December 23, 2001

By	Temple Swann (Arkansas, USA) - See all my reviews

First of all, let me say this: I am a Truman Capote fanatic, an absolute Truman Capote maniac. I read "Answered Prayers" when I was in the 11th grade, and I was so angry that he died before he could finish it. I devour Capote's work as though it were an edible delicacy, or as though it were a lunar eclipse, something that is so incredibly rare, something to be cherished by all. I love "Answered Prayers" because it is like a man spilling secrets about his high-class, muckety-muck friends. Damaging secrets, secrets that we all knew they would refute, though we knew they were true. Secrets like Montgomery Clift's homosexuality. This book was rather vulgar, depicting Capote's wilder side, the Capote side that rages like a forest fire, rages unchecked. Read this book, do yourself a favor, read this book.

~Steven Harvey

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Trashy, but great fun, September 6, 2005

By	IRA Ross (HOBOKEN, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This dazzlingly scandalous unfinished novel could only have come from the pen of Truman Capote. He pokes fun at world famous celebrities, some of whom P.B. Jones, an aspiring writer of great promise, mixes it up with. In his adventures, Jones also falls under the influence of con men, drug and alcohol abusers and those of ill and near ill repute.

Forced to support himself financially, P.B. Jones must temporarily resort to hustling and other slightly more socially acceptable activities. Jones learns about a low-life, but physically attractive, young woman who marries, then allegedly murders, a naive son of a millionaire, only to get away with the crime because his parents do not want to blacken their name. Jones, himself, is requested to get involved in kidnapping and homicide by a woman who had married into a monied family. One woman, who fancies herself an animal lover, gains some noteriety by shooting a man who kills a white leopard.

Mr. Capote supposedly lost the friendships of a number of prominent people whom he so casually reveals conversations that were never meant to be displayed on the printed page. While some may deplore Mr. Capote's disloyalty to these individuals, it makes for some dishy fun reading about their ex-husbands, their scandalous love affairs, and other such dirty laundry, including badly defiled bed sheets. Such is the down side of fame.

_Answered Prayers_ is oftentimes very funny (the portion starring Dorothy Parker and Tallulah Bankhead is a scream) and sometimes very, very naughty. This book occasionally borders on the pornographic. I doubt very much that if Mr. Capote had completed his supposed magnum opus that the critics would have considered it great art. There is nothing in these pages that suggests any such potential. But as fly on the wall eaves dropping and "fictonalized" reportage (as what one might read in The Star or in Cindy Adams's columns) it is never boring.