Music for Chameleons
Capote, Truman. Music for Chameleons. First Edition. 1980. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition.
This was the last book containing new writing to be published in Truman Capote’s lifetime. It came together in 1979, a period of calm between self-inflicted storms, in which Capote momentarily gained control over himself, and thus, his talent. Like with much of Capote’s work, there are traces of the autobiographical. The longest piece is Handcarved Coffins, which Capote’s biographer Gerald Clarke classifies as a “novella-length thriller.” It was based in fact, another crime in Kansas involving Detective Alvin Dewey, Capote’s old friend of In Cold Blood fame, and it is likely, Capote hoped lighting might strike twice. After all, it was the 1959 murder of a family in Kansas that led to the runaway bestseller book that seemed to have answered Capote’s prayers.
“Some cities, liked wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers. To know such cities, to unwrap them, as it were, one has to have been born there.”
--Truman Capote