Product Description

Set on the outskirts of a small Southern town, The Grass Harp tells the story of three endearing misfits--an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies--who one day take up residence in a tree house. AS they pass sweet yet hazardous hours in a china tree, The Grass Harp manages to convey all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom. But most of all it teaches us about the sacredness of love, "that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life."

This volume also includes Capote's A Tree of Night and Other Stories, which the Washington Post called "unobstrusively beautiful...a superlative book."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #120368 in Books
• Published on: 1993-09-28
• Released on: 1993-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780679745570
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Inside Flap
Set on the outskirts of a small Southern town, The Grass Harp tells the story of three endearing misfits--an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies--who one day take up residence in a tree house. AS they pass sweet yet hazardous hours in a china tree, The Grass Harp manages to convey all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom. But most of all it teaches us about the sacredness of love, "that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life."

This volume also includes Capote's A Tree of Night and Other Stories, which the Washington Post called "unobstrusively beautiful...a superlative book."

About the Author
Truman Capote was a native of New Orleans, where he was born on September 30, 1924. His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, was an international literary success when first published in 1948, and accorded the author a prominent place among the writers of America's postwar generation. He sustained this position subsequently with short-story collections (A Tree of Night, among others), novels and novellas (The Grass Harp and Breakfast at Tiffany's), some of the best travel writing of our time (Local Color), profiles and reportage that appeared originally in The New Yorker (The Duke in His Domain and The Muses Are Heard), a true-crime masterpiece (In Cold Blood), several short memiors about his childhood in the South (A Christmas Memory, The Thanksgiving Visitor, and One Christmas), two plays (The Grass Harp and House of Flowers and two films (Beat the devil and The Innocents).

Mr. Capote twice won the O.Henry Memorial Short Story Prize and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He died in August 1984, shortly before his sixtieth birthday.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant! Entertaining! Beautifully written! Read it!!
For years I've known this work existed, but never read it until now. I've been fishing about in contemporary fiction, looking for something entertaining, enlightening, and superbly well written, but my search ended entirely when I finally read this novel, written in 1951. Set in the South, in the countryside, this story draws you in to its surroundings, which are so important to its impact. Its three main characters, Dolly, Collin, and Catherine, are real presences that emerge from the lush southern environs as complex, blooming beings whose lives take time to develop and understand. There is nothing slick about this writing; it's just elegant and clear. The story is filled with interesting characters, and proceeds as if inspired by Twain. It is entertaining, poetic, and meaningful all at once. I found myself rereading the opening pages, picturing the scene that Capote presents, and feeling how brilliant it is in its elegiac and inspired imagery. The story is simple enough: a young boy, orphaned, lives with his two eccentric aunts in a small town in the South. One aunt is controlling, mean-spirited, and selfish, and the other is sweet, other-worldly, and gentle. When the mean aunt tries to exploit the sweet one by mass producing the sweet one's folk medicine remedy she learned from a traveling gypsy woman, the sweet aunt runs away from home with the orphan boy and her best friend, a strange Indian woman. They don't run too far, however, just to a local tree house in a China tree. From that point on, everyone learns something about themselves, including the mean aunt. The world is a generous place to Truman Capote, and it has mercies to give, and lessons to be learned. In fact, it's something of a magical world that Capote gives us, almost a precursor of the magical realism of Marquez and others. But as the characters learn about themselves, so we the readers learn too, about what love is, about change, and about what we accept in life. For Capote to have written this book at the age of 26 is truly a miracle. This book alone puts him in league with the greats. I highly recommend The Grass Harp to anyone looking for that one great book to read and treasure.

A Miracle of Writing: Capote's Genius at Full Throttle
[I wrote this review in 1999 as "A Reader." I hope more people read it and read this book.]
For years I've known about this work but never read it until now. I've been fishing about in contemporary fiction, looking for something entertaining, enlightening, and superbly well written, but my search ended entirely when I finally read this novel, written in 1951. Set in the South, in the countryside, this story brilliantly draws you into its magical surroundings. Its three main characters, Dolly, Collin, and Catherine, are real presences that emerge from the lush southern environs as complex, blooming beings whose lives take time to develop and understand. There is nothing slick about this writing; it's just classically elegant and clear. The story is packed with interesting people and proceeds as if inspired by Twain. It is entertaining, poetic, and meaningful all at once. I found myself rereading the opening pages, picturing the scene, and feeling how brilliant the writing was in its elegiac and inspired imagery. The story is simple: a young boy, orphaned, lives with his two eccentric aunts in a small town in the South. One aunt is mean-spirited and selfish, and the other is sweet, other-worldly, and gentle. When the mean aunt tries to exploit the sweet one by mass producing a folk medicine remedy the sweet aunt learned about from a traveling gypsy woman, the sweet aunt runs away from home with the orphan boy and her best friend, a strange Indian woman. They don't run too far, however, just to a tree house in a nearby China tree. From that point on, everyone learns something about themselves. This southern world is a generous place to Truman Capote, and it has mercies to give and lessons to be learned. In fact, it's something of a magical world, almost a precursor of the magical realism of Marquez and others. But as the characters learn about themselves, so we the readers learn too, about what love is, about change, and about what we accept in life. For Capote to have written this book at the age of 26 is truly a miracle. This book alone puts him in league with the literary giants. I highly recommend "The Grass Harp" to anyone looking for that one great book to read and treasure.

A Great and Touching Novel
Capote found his full voice in this, his second novel. It is a fantasy based on characters from his own life, including himself, his aunt Sook Faulk, to whom the book is dedicated "in memory of affections deep and true", another aunt, and their servant.

Capote's prose is beautiful and lucid as it carries the reader through the book at a swift pace, and this novel achieves the rare combination of ease of reading with depth of thought and emotion.