‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ by Truman Capote   (1948) – 187 pages

In the Books section of The Guardian, they have a regular feature called “Where to Start With” where they discuss the books written by a well-known author. Recently they had “Where To Start With” Truman Capote. The only book I had read before by Truman Capote was ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, and that was a long time ago. The article ended with a section called Capote’s “Masterpiece”, and there they pointed to ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’. So I decided to read it.

‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ was Truman Capote’s first novel. Quickly I discovered that Capote put his heart and soul and himself into this novel. I find that often a writer’s first work is their finest while they are still trying hard to get first published. I suppose there is professionalism in novel writing, but it is usually in their first works that authors will go for broke with their talents and imaginations. That is what Truman Capote did here.

The main character in ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ is the thirteen year-old boy Joel Harrison Knox.

“He was too pretty, too delicate, too fair-skinned; each of his features was shaped with a sensitive accuracy, and a girlish tenderness softened his eyes, which were brown and very large.”

His mother has died, and his father who abandoned him as a baby has sent a letter saying he would welcome the boy to come live with him. So the boy Joel travels to rural Mississippi. He arrives at Skully’s Landing which is a large old decrepit mansion on a former plantation. There he meets and comes to know several unusual and strange characters. There is his sullen stepmother Amy and his colorful cousin Randolph who dabbles in art and takes a special interest in Joel. There is also the black maid and cook Missouri, also known as Zoo, who is the household maid and cook. She befriends Joel.

“Shoot, boy, the country’s just fulla folks what knows everythin. And don’t understand nothin, just fullofem.”

The black characters in ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ are portrayed with dignity and respect and closeness.

Also Joel meets the two white neighbor sisters Idabel and Florabel who are about his age. He develops a special friendship with Idabel. She calls him “sissy britches”. Later Joel will run off to a carnival with Idabel.

“She’s got willful ways, Idabel has. Ask anybody.”

Joel meets all these people, but where is his father?

Truman Capote

As I said before, Truman Capote went all out in writing this novel. It is usually characterized as Southern Gothic, but that phrase does not begin to capture the essence of the writing.

Here is an example of Capote setting a scene:

“Swarms of dragonflies quivered above a slime-covered watertrough; and a scabby hound dog padded back and forth, sniffing the bellies of tied up mules.”

This is a novel of a boy growing up. After all of the new people he has met and the adventures he has had, at the end Joel looks back “at the boy he had left behind”.

Grade:   A