Editing Truman Capote (section)

== Early life ==

[[File:Historic ruins of Truman Capote's boyhood home in Monroeville, Alabama LCCN2010639945.tif|thumb|upright=1.2|Brick ruins outline the "spreading old house" in [[Monroeville, Alabama]], that was the boyhood home of Truman Capote and the setting for his 1956 story "[[A Christmas Memory]]".]]
Truman Capote was born at [[Touro Infirmary]] in [[New Orleans]], Louisiana, to Lillie Mae Faulk (1905–1954) and salesman Archulus Persons (1897–1981).<ref name="ClarkeBio"/> He was sent to [[Monroeville, Alabama]], where, for the following four to five years, he was raised by his mother's relatives. He formed a fast bond with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Truman called "Sook". "Her face is remarkable – not unlike [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln's]], craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind", is how Capote described Sook in "[[A Christmas Memory]]" (1956). In Monroeville, Capote was a neighbor and friend of [[Harper Lee]], who would also go on to become an acclaimed author and a lifelong friend of Capote's. Lee's ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'' likely models [[Charles Baker Harris|Dill]]'s characterization upon Capote.<ref>{{cite news |title='Kansas' imagines Truman Capote-Harper Lee rift |url=https://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2007-12-17-powers-capote_N.htm |work=[[USA Today]] |date=December 17, 2007 |access-date=August 18, 2009 |first=Bob |last=Minzesheimer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100605015147/http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2007-12-17-powers-capote_N.htm |archive-date=June 5, 2010 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Truman |last=Capote |author2=M. Thomas Inge |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWZ3XEQy6X0C |title=Truman Capote: conversations |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-87805-275-2 |page=332 |access-date=March 16, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170119061821/https://books.google.com/books?id=WWZ3XEQy6X0C |archive-date=January 19, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Mockingbird: a portrait of Harper Lee |first=Charles J. |last=Shields |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j8cm3hxUd7MC |publisher=Macmillan |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-8050-7919-7 |page=34 |access-date=March 16, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131114113453/http://books.google.com/books?id=j8cm3hxUd7MC |archive-date=November 14, 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref>

As a lonely child, Capote taught himself to read and write before he entered his first year of school.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0930.html |title=Truman Capote is Dead at 59; Novelist of Style and Clarity |work=The New York Times |date=August 26, 1984 |access-date=March 8, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015050529/http://nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0930.html |archive-date=October 15, 2009 |url-status=live }}</ref> Capote was often seen at age five carrying his dictionary and notepad, and began writing fiction at age 11.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWZ3XEQy6X0C&pg=PA169|editor=Inge, M. Thomas|title=Truman Capote Conversations'': Pati Hill interview from ''Paris Review'' 16 (1957)''|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=1987|isbn=9780878052752|access-date=March 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224194358/https://books.google.com/books?id=WWZ3XEQy6X0C&pg=PA169|archive-date=December 24, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> He was given the nickname "Bulldog" around this age.<ref>Walter, Eugene, as told to Katherine Clark. (2001). ''Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet''. Crown.</ref>

On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville to the nearby city of [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]] on the [[Gulf Coast]], and at one point submitted a short story, "Old Mrs. Busybody", to a children's writing contest sponsored by the ''[[Mobile Press Register]]''. Capote received recognition for his early work from [[The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards]] in 1936.<ref>{{cite web |title=Alumni |url=http://www.artandwriting.org/people/alumni |website=The Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091005105951/http://www.artandwriting.org/people/alumni |archive-date=October 5, 2009}}</ref>

In 1932, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, José García Capote. José was a former Spanish colonel who became a landlord at [[Union de Reyes, Cuba]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://diariodeavisos.elespanol.com/2016/10/escritor-truman-capote-vinculo-adoptivo-municipio-paso/|title=El escritor Truman Capote y su vínculo adoptivo con el municipio de El Paso {{!}} Diario de Avisos|date=October 19, 2016|work=Diario de Avisos|access-date=January 2, 2018|language=es-ES|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180103011636/http://diariodeavisos.elespanol.com/2016/10/escritor-truman-capote-vinculo-adoptivo-municipio-paso/|archive-date=January 3, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

Of his early days, Capote related, "I was writing really sort of serious when I was about eleven. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day, and I would write for about three hours. I was obsessed by it."<ref>{{cite book |first=Elizabeth |last=Oakes |title=American Writers |page=69 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Lb0zPJcYOwC&pg=PA69 |year=2004 |publisher=Facts On File, Inc.|isbn=9781438108094 }}</ref> In 1932, he attended the [[Trinity School (New York City)|Trinity School]] in New York City. He then attended St. Joseph Military Academy. In 1939, the Capote family moved to [[Greenwich, Connecticut]], and Truman attended [[Greenwich High School]], where he wrote for both the school's literary journal, ''The Green Witch'', and the school newspaper. When they returned to New York City in 1941, he attended the Franklin School, an [[Upper West Side]] private school now known as the [[Dwight School]], and graduated in 1942.<ref name="Gerald Clarke p.464">{{cite book | last = Clarke | first = Gerald | title = Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote | year = 2005 | publisher = [[Random House]] | isbn = 978-0-375-70241-9 | page = 464}}</ref> That was the end of his formal education.

While still attending Franklin in 1942, Capote began working as a [[copy boy]] in the art department at ''[[The New Yorker]]'',<ref name="Gerald Clarke p.464"/> a job he held for two years before being fired for angering poet [[Robert Frost]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Great American Writers: Twentieth Century |date=2002 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish |editor-last=Shuman |editor-first=R. Baird |volume=2 |location=New York |pages=233–254}}</ref> Years later, he reflected, "Not a very grand job, for all it really involved was sorting cartoons and clipping newspapers. Still, I was fortunate to have it, especially since I was determined never to set a studious foot inside a college classroom. I felt that either one was or wasn't a writer, and no combination of professors could influence the outcome. I still think I was correct, at least in my own case." He left his job to live with relatives in Alabama and began writing his first novel, ''[[Summer Crossing]]''.<ref>{{cite news|author=Long, Robert Emmet|title=Truman Capote|work=Critical Survey of Long Fiction|edition= Second Revised |year=2000|publisher= Literary Reference Center|via= EBSCO}}</ref>

He was called for [[Conscription|induction]] into the armed services during World War II, but he later told a friend that he was "turned down for everything, including the [[Women's Army Corps|WACS]]". He later explained that he was found to be "too neurotic".<ref name="ClarkeBio" />

=== Friendship with Harper Lee ===
Capote based the character of Idabel in ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' on his [[Monroeville, Alabama]] neighbor and best friend, [[Harper Lee]]. Capote once acknowledged this: "Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near. She was my best friend. Did you ever read her book, ''To Kill a Mockingbird''{{-?}} I'm a character in that book, which takes place in the same small town in Alabama where we lived. Her father was a lawyer, and she and I used to go to trials all the time as children. We went to the trials instead of going to the movies."<ref>Interview with Lawrence Grobel</ref> After Lee was awarded the [[Pulitzer Prize]] in 1961 and Capote published ''In Cold Blood'' in 1966, the authors became increasingly distant from each other.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/news/harper-lee-truman-capote-friendship-jealously|title=Harper Lee and Truman Capote Were Childhood Friends Until Jealously Tore Them Apart|date=May 29, 2019|first=Barbara|last=Maranzani|website=Biography}}</ref>