Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood: A Lecture

Join us on October 17, 2012 at 5:30 pm for an evening with Dr. Ralph Voss, retired professor of English at The University of Alabama. Voss will talk about his new book, Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood (UA Press, 2011).

The talk will be followed by Q&A and a book signing. This event, like all events at Hoole, is free and open to the public.  A small exhibit of Capote materials will be on display in the Hoole Lobby.

"Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood  is the anatomy of the origins of an American literary landmark and its legacy.

Ralph F. Voss was a high school junior in Plainville, Kansas in mid-November of 1959 when four members of the Herbert Clutter family were murdered in Holcomb, Kansas, by “four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives,” an unimaginable horror in a quiet farm community during the Eisenhower years. No one in Kansas or elsewhere could then have foreseen the emergence of Capote’s book–which has never gone out of print, has twice been made into a major motion picture, remains required reading in criminology, American Studies, sociology, and English classes, and has been the source of two recent biographical films.

Voss examines Capote and In Cold Blood from many perspectives, not only as the crowning achievement of Capote’s career, but also as a story in itself, focusing on Capote’s artfully composed text, his extravagant claims for it as reportage, and its larger status in American popular culture.

Voss argues that Capote’s publication of In Cold Blood in 1966 forever transcended his reputation as a first-rate stylist but second-rate writer of  “Southern gothic” fiction; that In Cold Blood actually is a gothic novel, a sophisticated culmination of Capote’s artistic development and interest in lurid regionalism, but one that nonetheless eclipsed him both personally and artistically. He also explores Capote’s famous claim that he created a genre called the “non-fiction novel,” and its status as a foundational work of “true crime” writing as practiced by authors ranging from Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer to James Ellroy, Joe McGinniss, and John Berendt.

Voss also examines Capote’s artful manipulation of the story’s facts and circumstances: his masking of crucial homoerotic elements to enhance its marketability; his need for the killers to remain alive long enough to get the story, and then his need for them to die so that he could complete it; and Capote’s style, his shaping of the narrative, and his selection of details–why it served him to include this and not that, and the effects of such choices—all despite confident declarations that “every word is true.”

Though it’s been nearly 50 years since the Clutter murders and far more gruesome crimes have been documented, In Cold Blood continues to resonate deeply in popular culture. Beyond questions of artistic selection and claims of truth, beyond questions about capital punishment and Capote’s own post-publication dissolution, In Cold Blood’s ongoing relevance stems, argues Voss, from its unmatched role as a touchstone for enduring issues of truth, exploitation, victimization, and the power of narrative."

A Best-Selling Author was Born....Carl Carmer and Stars Fell on Alabama

October 16 marks the birthday of bestselling author and former University of Alabama professor of English, Carl Carmer. Born in 1893 in Cortland, New York, Carmer came to The University of Alabama in 1927 after completing graduate work at Harvard University. His experiences in Alabama led to his best-selling book, Stars Fell on Alabama.

The New York Times review from the period said, "Carmer reveals himself here as a writer of more than ordinary perceptiveness and imagination, with the power of extracting from what he sees, hears, and feels an essence which is fundamentally poetic."

What he saw, heard, and felt, from experiences all over the state, still stand today as powerful documentation of folkways, and of the racial violence and conflict that existed in Alabama. Carmer became friends with people who took him all over the state, and he experienced first hand everything from foot-washings and shape note singing, to myths and superstitions (like the legendary night in 1833 when "stars fell on Alabama -- the Leonid meteor shower), as well as the horror of an actual lynching -- and he wrote about it all with great honesty.

Carmer left Alabama in 1933 (coincidently one hundred years after the stars fell...)to serve as the assistant editor at Vanity Fair magazine.

Carmer had a colleague, Clarence Cason -- who also wrote honestly about Alabama during this same period. An essay on Carmer and Cason, exploring their work and Cason's tragic fate was published in 2003 in the journal Southern Cultures, by Dr. Phil Beidler of the UA Department of English. This fascinating essay,Yankee Interloper and Native Son: Carl Carmer and Clarence Cason Unlikely Twins of Alabama Exposé is a very worthy read and gives a great glimpse into these two men and the period in which they wrote.


Carmer went on to write thirty-seven books in all, in addition to his editorial and consultant work, advising on matters of folklore for Walt Disney productions! He also recorded four albums of folk music. His most famous work, Stars fell on Alabama has been in print for many years, most recently reprinted by The University of Alabama Press in 2000, with an introduction by former NY Times editor and Alabama native, Howell Raines. The images above are first editions of the book from the Hoole Library's Alabama Collection. Carmer died in 1976 at the age of 93. Today is the 115th anniversary of his birth.

Portrait of Carl Carmer from This Goodly Land entry on Carmer

Visit Alabama Authors at http://www.lib.ua.edu/Alabama_Authors/
or Carmer's entry in This Goodly Land to learn more about him and more about Alabama's rich literary heritage!

A-Quiver With Significance: Marianne Moore, 1932—1936

Today in Gorgas Library 205, at 4 pm, Dr. Heather Cass White, Associate Professor of English will read from her book and discuss her project, which includes a collaboration with University Libraries , namely the acquisition of a rare volume of Moore's work, which was turned into a facsimile edition through the work of the Hoole Special Collections Library staff. This is an excellent example of how Special Collections can help to facilitate and further the research and teaching efforts of The University of Alabama faculty and students.

The Pangolin and Other Verse by Marianne Moore.
London: Brendin Publishing Co., 1936.
1 of 120 copies printed at the Curwen Press, Plaistow, London. Drawings are by George Plank.

“Building the edition off of a facsimile reprint of Moore’s powerful collection of poems, The Pangolin and Other Verse, makes good sense given the importance of the volume to her modernist peers. As White notes, Moore paid particular attention to the ordering of her verses in this collection, as she did to every aspect of the book’s production. The volume makes an excellent case study in the ways in which the material presentation of a book of poems can prove vital to addressing the content of the verses within.” – Robin G. Schulze, Pennsylvania State University, editor of Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems, 1907-1924

The University Libraries Lecture Series is made possible in part through the generous support of Lakey and Susan Tolbert.