Truman Capote, writer, artist

The New York Times has an insightful take on Truman Capote and his impact on journalism and writing. (Read the article here.) These sentences from David Carr's article really capture the heart of Capote's appeal:

Most anyone who types today owes something to Capote. A novelist who developed a passing interest in real events, he transformed the hackwork of journalism into something far more literary and substantial.
"There was no one ever in American life who was remotely like Truman Capote," said Mr. (Norman) Mailer, who once suggested that Capote was the best sentence writer alive. "Small wonder, then, if people are still fascinated by him."

The article is inspired by two new movies on Capote's life, one based on the biography Capote, by Gerald Clarke; the other based on an oral history of Capote's life by George Plimpton called Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. I've read both books, and they're excellent. The Clarke book is a thick, comprehensive yet readable biography that will likely be the definitive work on Capote's life for years to come. The Plimpton book, on the other hand, is a breezy but fascinating compendium of first-hand anecdotes told in observers' own words. Pick your pleasure.
When I was younger, I thought Truman Capote was just the coolest ... a great writer, a party boy, a gay nonconformist. Basically, what a cosmopolitan literary type should be. Now that I'm older, I see a lot of sadness in his life, most especially in all the potential that was lost after he wrote "In Cold Blood." The book ended up eating away at him, maybe even destroying him -- the biographies agree that he never seemed to recover from writing it. His decline into drugs and alcohol is usually tacked on to biographical writing about him almost as a footnote. But I think it was much more significant than that. It was the result of the abyss he had to confront when writing "In Cold Blood." He was trying to medicate himself into feeling good again, but it didn't work. It killed him.
The book had a tremendous impact on other people as well. The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World published a superb special section to mark the book's 40th anniversary (read it here). It mostly looks at the impact the book had on the people of Kansas, but it also has an interesting piece on Harper Lee's role in the book. Yes, Harper Lee of "To Kill a Mockingbird." She was a childhood friend of Truman's, and she went with him to Kansas and helped him research it.
You can read an excerpt from "In Cold Blood" via Amazon here.