33 pages • 1 hour read
Truman CapoteA Christmas Memory
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1956A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Truman Capote
Born Truman Streckfus Persons in 1924 (he later adopted the last name “Capote” from his stepfather), Truman Capote experienced a turbulent childhood as a result of his parents’ divorce and the ensuing custody battle; this feud left Capote (in his own words) “stranded” with relatives in Monroeville, Alabama, for much of his childhood (“A Thanksgiving Visitor.” Modern Library, 2007, p. 60). In Monroeville, Capote was a childhood friend of American author Harper Lee, who based the character of “Dill” in To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) on Capote. A precocious talent, Capote published short stories in leading American magazines as a teenager and won accolades for his early novels Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and The Grass Harp (1951). Capote achieved national fame with Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and his pioneering work of true-crime journalism, In Cold Blood (1965). A prominent figure in New York’s elite social and artistic circles, during his lifetime Capote was as famous for his eccentric mannerisms and high-society scandals as for his literary talents; his decision to live openly as a gay man attracted further media attention. Capote died in Los Angeles in 1984, but he is widely remembered as a gifted prose stylist, a midcentury master of the short story and novella forms, and as the father of modern true-crime writing.
“A Christmas Memory” depicts incidents from Capote’s childhood years spent with distant relatives in Alabama. The story was originally published as a work of fiction, but two later narratives about Buddy and his friend—“The Thanksgiving Visitor” (1967) and “One Christmas” (1984)—explicitly identify “Buddy” as Capote, and Buddy’s “friend” as his cousin Miss Sook. Thus, “A Christmas Memory” is also a memoir of the author’s childhood. In “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” Capote describes his childhood friendship with Miss Sook:
[T]he youngest of the cousins, a woman in her sixties, became my first friend. As she was a child herself (many people thought her less than that, and murmured about her as though she were the twin of poor nice Lester Tucker, who roamed the streets in a sweet daze), she understood children, and understood me absolutely. Perhaps it was strange for a young boy to have as his best friend an aging spinster, but neither of us had an ordinary outlook or background, and so it was inevitable, in our separate loneliness, that we should come to share a friendship apart (60-61).
Seen in this light, “A Christmas Memory” is Capote’s tribute to his “first friend,” and a celebration of a woman who was often treated as “less than” by her community.
Socio-Historical Context: Nonconformity and Disability in Midcentury America
First published in 1956, “A Christmas Memory” depicts events from Capote’s childhood in the early 1930s. In both the 1930s and the 1950s, any individual divergence from the narrowly defined “norm” of the white nuclear family unit was likely to be socially stigmatized and punished. One of the story’s key aspects is how coldly Buddy’s relatives treat both Buddy and his friend, as this coldness (and even occasional cruelty) suggests that Buddy and his friend are viewed as embarrassments due to their divergence from social norms: Both characters have “failed” to inhabit the idealized family unit. The story never mentions Buddy’s parents, but because the character is an autobiographical figure for Capote himself, readers can infer that he has been abandoned by his parents and thus serves as a reminder of their shameful divorce; in the case of Buddy’s cousin, she is an aging woman without a husband or children, making her particularly dependent upon her extended family and therefore vulnerable to their whims. As Capote suggests in “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” both Buddy and his friend (Miss Sook) were stigmatized by their relatives and condemned to a “separate loneliness” that they overcame only through their mutual friendship (61).
Buddy’s friend’s alienation from her family likely possesses another dimension of nonconformity; her relatives call her “loony,” and based on how the community mistreats her in “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” it appears that she is considered to have either a mental illness or intellectual disability. Whether Buddy’s friend does have an illness or disability is not clear in “A Christmas Memory.” Buddy says she is “still a child” (4), and while this phrase is sometimes used as a euphemism for having an intellectual disability, the description might simply indicate the young Buddy’s strong identification with his friend. The idea of childlikeness also indirectly highlights how she is sympathetic and understanding in comparison with his other relatives. If Buddy’s friend does have an illness or disability, she is criticized and isolated for it; if she does not, then her relatives view her differences as sufficient justification for dismissing her as a “loony.” In either case, Buddy’s friend is punished for her failure to conform.
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