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Capote's Holiday Memoirs: The Whispers of Memory

Truman Capote's The Thanksgiving Visitor was chosen as a Moderator's Choice by Laura Webber, "The Tall Woman," as a read for the group On the Southern Literary Trail for November, 2014

These reflections have been written over the course of nearly three years. After my wife read these thoughts, she pointed out the importance of marking the time of thoughts in connection with the events of our lives.

December 24, 2011


Perhaps I should say this is not so much the review of a book, but the response A Christmas Memory still draws from me each year when I read it. Perhaps it is just a simple statement of the preciousness of memory and the gift it brings us to keep things alive within us, though those things have been gone from us for many years.

Things. Toys, books, friends, parents, lovers, spouses, children. What would we do without the gift of memory? How would we survive? Without it, we would be nothing but empty shells mindlessly living in the moment.

On an old revolving bookcase in my library are some of my favorite books. Faulkner and Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Steinbeck fill the little shelves that turn easily at the push of a finger. Eudora Welty is there, as is Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers and Thomas Wolfe. My beloved "To Kill a Mockingbird" rests underneath a miniature of the old Monroeville courthouse on a shelf up on the wall overlooking the little bookcase that holds the treasures of my imagination.

I glance up at it and back down to the little case that spins so easily. There is Erskine Caldwell. And there is Truman Capote. There is a copy of the complete short stories of the little man who spent his summers with Harper Lee in Monroeville when they were children.

Normally two slender volumes stand next to the Capote short stories . They are slipcased editions of "The Thanksgiving Visitor" and a "Christmas Memory." I have taken them to the bedside table because it is time to read them once more. The Holidays have begun. Thanksgiving has come and gone. I could re-shelve "The Thanksgiving Visitor, but I never do until I have read "A Christmas Memory" once more.


Remembrance of Things Past

They are a matched set in more ways than one. "The Thanksgiving Visitor" is in a blue slipcase, "A Christmas Memory" is in red. Each has a photograph of a very young Truman Capote and his best childhood friend, Aunt Sook, tipped onto the case. The books slide easily from their cases for I have read them so many times. Each is a testament to the art of making books one does not often find anymore. The gold titles still gleam along the spines. Each page is on paper so thick I can feel the rag content between my fingers. There is still the faint smell of the typesetter's ink. Or is it only my imagination? Does it matter? The dark green endpapers turn stiffly at the insistence of my finger, reminding me something special is inside. And in each of them is the spidery Spenserian handwriting of my grandmother, "Xmas 1980, Ammomie and Papa."


Evidence of love surrounds us

It is that inscription that urges me to take these little books out each year. For in addition to the joy and simple kindness of Capote's holiday memories are the memories of my own Thanksgivings and Christmases, some joyous and some not, especially those holidays without my grandparents, both of whom have been gone now over twenty years. Yet I still long for their presence, I find them with me more often now because of the gift of memories, especially the sweetest ones.

But reading these little stories, seeing my grandmother's little inscription, bring my grandparents back to me in ways I could not have without the weight of these books in my hand. They are the physical ties that bind us together no matter how many years we may be apart, no matter how many years it may be before we hopefully are together again, or not. Who is to say? Who knows? I certainly don't.

So it is Christmas Eve once more. Tonight I will read "A Christmas Memory." I have lost count of the times I have read it.

Today my mother's kitchen will be redolent with the aromas of Roast Turkey, buttermilk pie, sweet potato souffle and sweet bourbon corn pudding. The cornbread dressing will be steaming and the giblet gravy will be hot and succulent. I will share the table today with my wife and mother. I will be thankful for home and family and the memory of those I love who will not be sharing our table today, whether separated by simple miles or death itself. I will raise a toast to each of those dear to me and I will feel their presence around the table because of two little books given to me one Christmas morning more than thirty years ago.

Though there will be no fruitcake at our table, I will delight in Sook's excited call to Buddy. "It's Fruitcake Weather!"

I have walked the streets of Monroeville, Alabama, many times. There is little sign of Truman Capote or Nelle Harper Lee in that town, other than the old Courthouse, now a museum. Truman Capote's childhood summer and Christmas home is a vacant lot. Ms. Lee's home, if my geography is right, is occupied by something akin to a Dairy Queen, though some owner long past decided the name recognition was not worth the franchise price to have it.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or nothing at all, I wish each of you the best of memories for the coming day.

To Life--
Mike

Addendum

December 24, 2013

The Christmas dinner described above was the last my wife and I shared with my Mother. We were fortunate to have her with us through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our homes were two doors apart. My wife and I moved into her home to be her caregivers. Mother died February 1, 2012. I am fortunate to have a number of books given to me by her through the years. I am mindful of the poet W.S. Merwin who told us, “What you remember saves you.� Yes, it does.

Another Thanksgiving, Evening, November 22, 2014

Tomorrow, my wife Martha Jo and I begin our Thanksgiving trip to Wilmington, North Carolina. Waiting for us there will be MJ's brother, Bill, whom MJ once hit over the head with a cast iron skillet because he insisted on watching Bonanza when she wanted to watch Lucy. His wife, Anne, will be producer and director of all activities. She was not the former Postmistress of Killingsworth, Connecticut, for nothing. Bill commonly tells people he is also from Connecticut. However the most important person in Wilmington we will see is Zola Mae Boston, MJ and Bill's mother. Zola Mae is ninety-five years young. She is from Dallas, Texas, as is MJ, and, of course, Bill. Although Bill is quite adroit in addressing anyone in a clipped Connecticut accent, when he tells anyone in Zola Mae's presence he is from Connecticut, she corrects him. "Why, Bill Boston, you're not from Connecticut. You're from Dallas, Texas. I ought to know. I was there when you were born." I rather enjoy seeing a Texan denying his heritage chastened. *chuckle*

So it is not that I am without family. I am embraced by them, particularly Zola Mae who loves how I say Alabama. That our accents are not that different has not occurred to her.

The Thanksgiving Visitor and A Christmas Memory have both been carried to Wilmington. Holiday dinners there are not small affairs. Friends and neighbors fill the house. Extra tables and chairs are brought in. Each couple, group, single, brings a dish.

Following dinner, I have read each of Capote's memoirs aloud in character. And these stories have become part of the memories of many others over two previous holiday seasons. I can do it straight. And, yes, I can channel Capote, which rather unnerves even me.

This year these little books grow even more special to me as I read the comments of "The Trail" members while they experience Capote's stories. One mother is reading "The Thanksgiving Visitor" to her ten year old daughter. She's a smart child. She likes Buddy's friend and says the narrator is good. Now there's another child who will have some special memories of her own.

In all our lives we have memories both bitter and sweet. Nobody said it better than Robert Frost. "In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on."

Happy Thanksgiving. Should you not have occasion to celebrate that holiday, simply find a reason to remember it. Each day is a gift.