Answered Prayers

There are better books by Truman Capote, but this one is quite interesting. However, if someone is looking for something similar to In Cold Blood or Tiffany's Breakfast, don't even start it. In my opinion, this book is just to enjoy reading Capote's geniality and to have some idea about how the author's life was in one of his most difficult moments, when depression, sex and drugs were all around.
Those parts dedicated to the character Kate McCloud are really the most attractive part because there is really passion on them. The rest is just a complex radiography about the dark high society.

"Answered Prayers" was the leading shaggy-dog story of the U.S. literary world for almost two decades. When the first contract for Truman Capote's "masterpiece" was signed, Capote received an advance of $25,000 against delivery in January 1968 -- delivery of a book which would rival Proust's masterpiece, "Remembrance of Things Past," in portraying the aristocracy of our own times.

Well, alarms should have gone off immediately -- they should go off whenever ANY writer says that he's going
to "do a Proust." But 1968 came and went, so the publishers gave Capote more money ("substantially" more)
for a three-volume masterpiece, now due in 1973. And so on, and so on, until they finally settled on
a $1 million advance in 1980, this time payable only on delivery of the manuscript in 1981.

So, who says Truman Capote couldn't spin a captivating tale? Look at all the greenery he collected for this
shaggy-dog story of his "final masterpiece!!" :-)

Unfortunately, the publishers were not the only parties getting deceived during this fifteen-year escapade.
Truman Capote was also deeply involved in deceiving himself. He may have told himself that he was gathering
material for a masterpiece, but he was actually turning himself into the tame lap-dog and court jester of the
very rich. Marcel Proust himself would have warned Capote against such a foolish, self-defeating course
of action.

Capote was of course gay, but his new role as lap-dog to wealthy heterosexuals led him to adopt a strange,
tortured role familiar to many closeted socialites. As time passes, you start accepting all the straight
conventions, and begin dismissing any gay love affairs as trivial, sordid, or merely amusing, while holding
all heterosexual affairs in the highest honor and respect. In the end, the poor lap-dog may even try
to persuade his straight masters that he himself is enthralled with love for a beautiful woman, and start
trying to play that tune -- hitting a lot of false notes but keeping his masters entertained.

Unfortunately, all this is on view in "Answered Prayers," where the author's "bisexual" alter ego develops a huge, indeed infinitely large, crush on the mysterious beauty Kate McCloud, and maudlinly dedicates his life to
rescuing the kidnaped son of his princess, which son is being held in an evil mountain fortress by ogres
from the Teutonic lands.

Even as Capote descended into writing this sort of childish fairy-tale, his self-loathing grew
enormously, from his famous Black And White Ball onwards. He danced and sang for the entertainment
of the jet set, and hated himself for it. As he began spinning his shaggy-dog story, his real
literary output fell to nearly zero, while drugs and alcohol moved to center stage. In his more lucid
moments, however, he took his revenge on his trivial "masters" by spilling their secrets in a series of
devastating short vignettes -- which he brilliantly pretended were chapters from his long-promised,
shaggy-dog masterpiece!!

It's no such thing, of course: it's an episodic, unstructured, pornographic mess which DID in fact
accomplish its unconscious purpose: once Capote began printing excerpts from this "novel," his Cafe
Society buddies dropped him like the proverbial hot potato.

So Capote was free at last -- to be himself and write whatever he liked. Unfortunately, he had wasted
almost two decades and had a couple of giant monkeys on his back. As things turned out, the next chapter
in his life was "Dissolution and Death."

It is all very sad, but it is also ironic. If Capote had actually read Proust, this could all have been
avoided, for Proust is a sovereign tonic against social climbing -- his devastating analysis of
the "top layers" of Parisian society is enough to put anyone off the idea that such people are worth
pursuing.

"Answered Prayers" has some wonderful smutty stories and a lot of gossip about the sex lives of the rich
and famous. There are some funny jokes and anecdotes of the Marlene Dietrich/Montgomery Clift era. It
is most certainly not in any sense a finished work of art.

Curiosity value only!!

Having read each of Capote's other publications, this work was as much a departure from previous works as the others. Seeking to write a revelation on the lives of the rich and famous in a time before gossip television shows, Capote uses real names (though often without surnames) and real situations. Though it is probably not the Capote book to give to your mother or a high school student, it is a fun read. Some in literary circles, and perhaps justifiably, have chosen to skip it.

The plot seems to loosely follow the exploits of P.B. Jones through three chapters. The first, called "Unspoiled Monsters" is the background story on Jones. The beginning and end of this chapter are clever in the way Capote brings the story full circle. The faint of heart must be warned that this chapter is permeated by sexuality. The second chatper titled "Kate McCloud" introduces us to Jones' hetero lust, Kate McCloud. The twist is obviously in the sexuality. The third chapter "La Cota Basque" does not seem to fit together as well as the previous chapters. In serves as a straight gossip rag, with little addition to the plot or characters.

The chapters are not generally cohesive, which lends to the belief that Capote did have other chapters to these book which may no longer exist. In this respect as well as some of the word choices do not seem to fit with Capote's other work. Incomplete, this is still a fun read though not on par with some of Capote's other work.

This dazzlingly scandalous unfinished novel could only have come from the pen of Truman Capote. He pokes fun at world famous celebrities, some of whom P.B. Jones, an aspiring writer of great promise, mixes it up with. In his adventures, Jones also falls under the influence of con men, drug and alcohol abusers and those of ill and near ill repute.

Forced to support himself financially, P.B. Jones must temporarily resort to hustling and other slightly more socially acceptable activities. Jones learns about a low-life, but physically attractive, young woman who marries, then allegedly murders, a naive son of a millionaire, only to get away with the crime because his parents do not want to blacken their name. Jones, himself, is requested to get involved in kidnapping and homicide by a woman who had married into a monied family. One woman, who fancies herself an animal lover, gains some noteriety by shooting a man who kills a white leopard.

Mr. Capote supposedly lost the friendships of a number of prominent people whom he so casually reveals conversations that were never meant to be displayed on the printed page. While some may deplore Mr. Capote's disloyalty to these individuals, it makes for some dishy fun reading about their ex-husbands, their scandalous love affairs, and other such dirty laundry, including badly defiled bed sheets. Such is the down side of fame.

_Answered Prayers_ is oftentimes very funny (the portion starring Dorothy Parker and Tallulah Bankhead is a scream) and sometimes very, very naughty. This book occasionally borders on the pornographic. I doubt very much that if Mr. Capote had completed his supposed magnum opus that the critics would have considered it great art. There is nothing in these pages that suggests any such potential. But as fly on the wall eaves dropping and "fictonalized" reportage (as what one might read in The Star or in Cindy Adams's columns) it is never boring.

The existing, published chapters of Answered Prayers constitute the most intelligent, edgy and well focused prose in American literature. The stories are dark and intimate, deep confession in the purest American tradition.
Capote took hell for writing these chapters. The doors into society he worked all his life to pry open were slammed shut, as his most famous friends read their lives printed in Esquire, where these works were originally published serially. Detractors that say his stories are innacurate should note this reaction from those he depicted.
Another chapter originally meant for Answered Prayers is Mojave, published in Music for Chameleons, and is excellent as well.

Poor work from a great writer is always tragic, but it is especially depressing in the case of Capote's Answered Prayers. It's billed as 'The Unfinished Novel,' which I suppose is true but seems disingenuous. I've read it a couple of times over the years as Capote is one of my favorite authors but never have I felt that this is, or could have been in any extended format, properly diagnosed as a novel, nor even that it was "unfinished." It is finished in the sense that there was no more work, or at least no more good work, that Capote could or would have done on it whether he lived longer or not.

The foreword at least prepares the reader adequately for the content. The editor explains the facts of Answered Prayers' development according to Capote, and offers theories on what additional work may or may not exist, finally conceding that the one person who knows the whole truth is dead.

Capote's hollow, mercenary narrator P.B. Jones reflects on his drifting life, which often intersects with the rich and beautiful and famous of his day. These yarns, sometimes offered second- or third-hand, are almost wholly concerned with infidelity, drunkenness, drug addiction, homosexuality -- certainly things that society's "elite" would rather conceal, but it's not as if such material was shocking or illuminating in the fiction world of the '70s (regardless of how much Capote's caricatures may be based on fact). If anything, the style of Answered Prayers now looks like a template for a great deal of bad sex n' drugs n' privilege fiction of the 1980s.

One character in this novel mentions the rarity of conversationalists who can be witty without being coarse. No one in this novel fits that profile, however. Everyone, including the narrator, is very vulgar and not terribly amusing. Again, we see the talent that Capote has abandoned or been abandoned by since he wrote fine, funny prose decades earlier. Every character in Answered Prayers is empty, defined only in terms of beauty, wealth and criminality. Even an orphaned mongrel puppy doesn't come off as particularly sympathetic in this world.

I hope no one experiences this book as their first encounter with Capote's work. He did write quite a lot of excellent stories, as well as one of the impossible, charmed debut novels of the 20th century. So turn instead to works like those, and forget about Answered Prayers if you can. I don't think you'll find that last to be a challenge.

This may be one of the most unsatisfying books I have read, which is a disappointment because I have enjoyed a couple of other Capote books, written before he succumbed to his own excesses and ego. This is so disjointed and lightweight that parts of it had me sighing in disgust, rueing the waste of a great talent. Capote seems to wear his crassness as a badge of honour, and while there is certainly nothing wrong with being proudly gay or even proudly wierd, he flaunts his strangeness in a way that becomes less endearing and more towards the annoying. It strikes me that Capote would have been a very frustrating person to know in real life - aloof and supremely selfish, a state most likely exacerbated by his addictions. The foreword to this "novel", written by its editor, hints at how difficult Capote was to deal with. Those points aside, all would have been forgiven if this had been a coherent, or at least interesting, piece of work. I found it self-indulgent, lazy and pretty much a waste of time. Its only value is perhaps as a cautionary tale for those who feel like wasting their talent.

Although I've never considered Capote a great writer (or even capable of resembling one), he did write In Cold Blood, one of the finest non-fiction books of the 20th Century. In short, he had genuine talent, which he threw away with both hands (rather like Fitzgerald, though he certainly didn't have his genius). Answered Prayers is, to my mind, proof of this -- magnificently written in parts, but sloppy, disorganized and ultimately pointless. One questions the judgement and motivations in publishing this singularly unfinished piece.

This unfinished fragment--a torso--of Capote's projected novel is an assiduous collection of gossip and tattle, narrated by the hollowest of men, a failed and talentless writer who has traded his entire life on his looks and sexual prowess. Either it is a small part of an organism which would be of enormous size and hadn't yet evolved its organs of weight, seriousness and direction, or Capote intended it to be a vast compendium of dirty stories about the rich and famous, trying to pass itself off as a portrait of How We Live Now. Its fragmentary nature probably does it a considerable favor, as the reader doesn't expect it to cohere and can appreciate its felicities (and supreme bitchiness) moment to moment. As it exists now, Answered Prayers can't really go anywhere, Capote's monument to himself a tombstone in a cul-de-sac. A bizarre reading experience, which did manage to pique my interest in his other work. Perhaps I did this backwards?

To read this odd book is to get a real look at Truman Capote at the end of his life. Capote was vain, bitchy, narcissistic, but alas the profoundly weird old queen was fascinating. He was truely unique, he made himself a superstar, he willed it so, this man was nakedly ambitious, he makes Trump look like a piker. This book ruined him and probably led to increased alcoholism, that ultimatly caused his death at sixty. When he wrote an excert of this book in a top magazine of the day, he became persona non grata among the brahman class of New York. This was Capote's own personal hell. It shows his arrogance and narcissism that he did not see that a book like this would make these people close ranks and ostracize him, he was stunned that they stopped taking his calls and dropped him from their party lists, they broke his heart and frankly I'm sure the parties were considerable less amusing with Truman gone. In this book you see in Capote a really unhappy man, that relished in the misfortune of others, but having said that I do find his dish very interesting, what does that say about me, lol. I believe that after he became a sensation after the great In Cold Blood, he really was paralized, he knew people expected another book of singular greatness, I think this absolutely destroyed him and he was so desperate that he conceived this ill advised book, it makes you understand why Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger never published a book after their masterpieces, Truman should have looked to his childhood friend Lee as an example, but he could not resist the spotlight and he wanted that feeling of adulation again. I recommend this book, it is not Capote's best work, of course, but it is something of a memoir and you get an unflinching look at this complex man.

First of all, let me say this: I am a Truman Capote fanatic, an absolute Truman Capote maniac. I read "Answered Prayers" when I was in the 11th grade, and I was so angry that he died before he could finish it. I devour Capote's work as though it were an edible delicacy, or as though it were a lunar eclipse, something that is so incredibly rare, something to be cherished by all. I love "Answered Prayers" because it is like a man spilling secrets about his high-class, muckety-muck friends. Damaging secrets, secrets that we all knew they would refute, though we knew they were true. Secrets like Montgomery Clift's homosexuality. This book was rather vulgar, depicting Capote's wilder side, the Capote side that rages like a forest fire, rages unchecked. Read this book, do yourself a favor, read this book.
~Steven Harvey

I am usually an enraptured fan of Capote's work. Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of his critics and former friends on this one. He plays around with a work that can be either a confessional or a gossip column or an introspection of fringe society. I was disappointed that his beautiful and haunting words were affected by his alcoholic and drug-induced ramblings. His talent for invoking tragic images without being crass was lost here.

Trash. Gossip. Boring. And unfinished. Some writers run out of rocket-fuel early, and it seems Capote blew his whole tankful with IN COLD BLOOD. As for ANSWERED PRAYERS, I can only say: That isn't writing...it's not even typing.

Capote tells us many stories in ANSWERED PRAYERS...the story of the Upper East Side lawyer who whores himself to pay his son's way at Exeter, the new wife who murders her husband for fear of losing the money into which she's married, and the hauntingly beautiful Kate McCloud, the toast of St. Moritz, who plots to kidnap her child from her new husband, whom she rightfully suspects is trying to kill her. It is also the story of Capote's dark doppleganger, P.B. Jones, and the self-loathing hue in which he paints his life in episodes of both tremendous scandal and surprising pathos. The greatest story, however, the one with which this fragment tantalizes the reader, is the story of a man and a separate society whose worse fate was to have every prayer they ever offered up answered, in spades. Answered Prayers is the novel Truman Capote never finished, but the one his most ardent fans wish he had finished, above all others. Also highly recommended: THE CHILDREN'S CORNER by Jackson McCrae.

There are signs of the former brilliance found in the writing of this unfinished novel which was published posthumously in 1987. Sadly, is not the great work that Capote had promised. As far as it goes it is an intriguing glimps into the life and thoughts of the author as it seems to be largely autobiographical.

"Answered Prayers" is written as a collection of loosely connected short stories, some of them better than others. Because the book has no ending, the stories kind of hang in the air by themselves, leaving fragmented memories. I thought about Hemingway's collections of stories when reading "Answered Prayers". Observations of life in different colors... The language is superb. One cannot help thinking what the end of the book could have been if Capote cared to finish it.

Capote's unfinished work is definitely worth reading but read his other stuff first. It takes a seasoned Capote fanatic to really enjoy this book. It is a shame that he never finished it. After reading "Kate McCloud" I could not wait to find out what would happen next, but I guess no one will ever know. And we all want to read La Cote Basque 1965 to get the real dirt.

But the truth is that Capote was indeed a gifted writer who left us very little to read. So take it all in, even these "tell all" stories that have less significance than his earlier work.

Oh My GOD! This is by far one of the most disturbing, amazingly tragic books that I have ever read. Buy this book and feel the pain and suffering that only Truman Capote can emote in the written word. Damn him for not finishing it, and pity us for being denied the finished work.

Nothing in this unfinished novel that compares to Breakfast at Tiffany's or Music for Chameleons (to state some of the most famous). However, it sure keeps an amusing tone and female characters are well depicted.

A true gossip columnist's view of later life. Unfinished, and perhaps that should allow him some measure of forgiveness. I'm not sure, however, that he could ever have saved himself. "Name dropping is what I am all about," D