Breakfast at Tiffany’s author Truman Capote died in 1984, but has recently become hot stuff all over again, mainly because the recent Hollywood movie but partly because of the resurfacing of the lost draft of his first novel Summer Crossing.

Capote was always as much a phenomenon as a spinner of fine prose. Capote the movie depicts the man researching the novel In Cold Blood that started a whole new genre, the fictionalised true story. Capote was also a society socialite and consumer of large quantities of drink and drugs. Toward the end of his life was publishing little and popping up on chat shows as one of those celebs who is famous for being famous.

When he died, Gore Vidal remarked, “Good career move”.

Summer Crossing was written when the lad was barely out of his teens but somehow the manuscript was mislaid.

We follow 17 year-old Grady McNeill, daughter to rich parents with an apartment on Fifth Avenue, around the beloved city. She is fuelled by booze and marijuana and is determined to mine New York for all the adventure it holds in a celebration of her freedom, a freedom that her parents think she is incapable of handling. She meets a car park attendant called Clyde, a guy from the other side of the tracks, and ends up in the sack and then hangs with his working class family and friends. Summer Crossing is poem based on character and evocation, and given the age of its author is quite remarkable.

Kansai Scene, July 2006

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