Truman Capote

‘Reading this oral biography is like gate-crashing one of Capote’s parties and being buttonholed by a series of insistent guests . . . Plimpton’s collage of reminiscence is apt enough for its subject, and fascinatingly (and bitchily) evocative of the man’ Robert McCrum, Observer

‘It is at the heart of this book . . . that Capote can be seen and heard at first hand. There are so many different voices, just like those at the parties which he gave remorselessly, that he comes alive from a hundred different vantages . . . engaging and entertaining’ Peter Ackroyd, The Times

‘Its babel of contradictory voices does justice to a complex and multi-faceted man, while avoiding the desiccated thickets in which more conventional biographies flail around. What one takes away from this book are great stories’ Independent on Sunday

‘Fascinating and rewarding . . . Plimpton transcends the limits of the ordinary biography by presenting the story in the voices of the many people who lived it . . . We are allowed to listen . . . and then to make up our own mind who Capote really was’ Daily Telegraph

‘Capote’s life, brilliant, sharp and fragmentary as a broken mirror, is made vividly present’ Anthony Haden-Guest, Sunday Times