"A Christmas Memory" is a short story by Truman Capote. Originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963. It was issued in a stand-alone hardcover edition by Random House in 1966, and it has been published in many editions and anthologies since.
The largely autobiographical story, which is set in the 1930s, describes a period in the lives of the seven-year-old narrator and an elderly woman who is his distant cousin and best friend. The woman was Nanny Faulk, elder sister of the household where Capote's wayward parents deposited him as a young boy. Nanny, whom everyone called Sook, was thought to be developmentally disabled. But Capote later wrote a friend, "I had an elderly cousin, the woman in my story 'A Christmas Memory,' who was a genius."[1]
The evocative narrative focuses on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season, and it also gently yet poignantly touches on loneliness and loss.
Now a holiday classic, "A Christmas Memory" has been broadcast, recorded, filmed, and staged multiple times, in award-winning productions.
Plot
Brick ruins outline the "spreading old house" in Monroeville, Alabama, that was the boyhood home of Truman Capote and the setting for "A Christmas Memory"
Narrated by an unnamed, seven-year-old boy who is addressed as "Buddy" by his older cousin, "A Christmas Memory" is about the narrator's relationship with his older, unnamed, female cousin, to whom he refers throughout the story only as "my friend." (In later adaptations, she is called Sook.) Buddy and his cousin, who is eccentric and childlike, live in a house with other relatives—who are authoritarian and stern—and have a dog named Queenie.
The family is very poor, but Buddy looks forward to Christmas every year nevertheless, and he and his elderly cousin save their pennies for this occasion. Each year at Christmastime, Buddy and his friend collect pecans and buy other ingredients to make fruitcakes; although set during Prohibition, these include whiskey, which they buy from a scary—but ultimately friendly—Indian bootlegger named Haha Jones. They send the cakes to acquaintances they have met only once or twice, and to people they've never met at all, such as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
This year, after the two have finished the elaborate four-day production of making fruitcakes, the elderly cousin decides to celebrate by finishing off the remaining whiskey. This leads to Buddy and his cousin becoming giddy drunk, and the cousin being severely reprimanded by angry relatives for letting Buddy imbibe. She runs off to her room crying, but Buddy follows and comforts her with thoughts of Christmas rituals.
The next day, Buddy and his friend go to a faraway grove, which the elderly cousin has proclaimed the best place, by far, to chop down Christmas trees. They manage to chop and carry home a large and beautiful tree, despite the arduousness of the trek. They spend the following days making decorations for the tree and presents for the relatives, Queenie, and each other. Buddy and the older cousin keep their gifts to each other a secret, and although Buddy knows his friend desperately wishes she could afford to get him a bike, he assumes his friend has made him a kite, as she has every year. He has made her a kite, too.
Come Christmas morning, the two of them are up at the crack of dawn, anxious to open their presents. Buddy is extremely disappointed, having received the rather dismal gifts of old hand-me-downs and a subscription to a religious magazine. His friend has gotten the somewhat better gifts of oranges and hand-knitted scarves. Queenie gets a bone, as she does every year.
Then they exchange the two kites, their joyful presents to each other, and Buddy's friend says the kite he made is her favorite gift that year. In a beautiful, hidden meadow, they fly the kites that day in the clear, winter sky, while eating the older cousin's Christmas oranges. The elderly cousin thinks of this as heaven, and says that God and heaven must be like this. It is their last Christmas together.
The following year, the boy is sent to military school. Although Buddy and his friend keep up a constant correspondence, it does not last because his elderly cousin suffers from the ravages of old age, and slips into dementia. Soon, she is unable to remember who Buddy is, and not long after, she passes away.
As Buddy says later:
And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven.
Adaptations and recordings
Television
Truman Capote kisses Geraldine Page on the cheek following a preview screening of "A Christmas Memory" on October 28, 1966
"A Christmas Memory" was adapted for television for ABC Stage 67 by Truman Capote and Eleanor Perry. The production starred Geraldine Page and Donnie Melvin, and Truman Capote was the narrator. Both the teleplay and the program's star, Geraldine Page, won Emmy Awards.[2][3] The production also won a Peabody Award.[4] This production is available on video under such titles as ABC Playhouse 67: A Christmas Memory or Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory". This version starring Geraldine Page was also released in cinemas by Allied Artists in 1969 as part of Truman Capote's Trilogy.[5]
The story was also adapted for Hallmark television in 1997. This production starred Eric Lloyd as Buddy and Patty Duke as Sook. Eric Lloyd was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie/Pilot/Mini-Series – Young Actor Age Ten or Under.[6] This version was criticized as being inferior to the previous film.[7]
The story has also been adapted as part of Short Story Anthology, a 16-part series available from Children's Television International. "A Christmas Memory" comprises episodes 11 and 12 of the series.
Recordings
For the live-audience Selected Shorts series, broadcast nationally on NPR stations, actor John Shea recorded "A Christmas Memory" in the late 1990s. Shea's sensitive reading was anthologized and sold on cassette,[8] and the anthology, Selected Shorts, Vol. XII, was the winner of AudioFile Magazine's Earphones Award in 1999.[9]
A CD of the story read by Celeste Holm is included in Knopf/Random House's 50th Anniversary 2006 printing of the book.[10]
Truman Capote's own reading of "A Christmas Memory" was recorded in 1959 and issued on LP.[11][12] An abridged version of the 1959 LP was featured on the NPR radio program This American Life in 2003.[13] Capote was also recorded in 1976 reading the story to a live audience at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference.[14]
Theatre
In 1991, a musical stageplay adaptation by Malcolm Ruhl and Russell Vandenbroucke, Holiday Memories, was published, which combines both "A Christmas Memory" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor."[15][16]
In 2010, Capote's "A Christmas Memory" was adapted into a full-length musical by Broadway veterans Larry Grossman (music) and Carol Hall (lyrics).[17] Duane Poole, who had written the original teleplay starring Patty Duke, wrote the musical's book. A Christmas Memory received its world premiere at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California on December 4, 2010, starring Broadway veteran, Penny Fuller. The musical had its Off-Broadway premiere at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Manhattan, starring Tony Award-winner Alice Ripley as Sook. It ran November 25, 2014 – January 4, 2015, at the Irish Rep's temporary home, the DR2 Theater in Union Square.[18]
Opera
In 1992, Capote's "A Christmas Memory" was adapted into a one-act opera by American composer Samuel Jones.[19] The opera was first staged by Gaitley Mathews at the Deep Ellum Opera Theatre in Dallas in December 1992, to critical acclaim.[20] The composer fashioned the libretto from the story and the Eleanor Perry/Truman Capote television screenplay, with their personal approval. The composer also created an orchestral suite from the opera.[21]
Sequels
Truman Capote further explored the lives of Buddy and Sook in his story "The Thanksgiving Visitor," which also was adapted for television. The 1967 television production of The Thanksgiving Visitor earned Geraldine Page a second Emmy Award.[3] Capote's third short story about Buddy and Sook was "One Christmas", published in 1983, and televised in 1994.[22]
Truman Garcia Capote was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics. His work and his life story have been adapted into and have been the subject of more than 20 films and television productions.
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. With a career which spanned four decades across film, stage, and television, Page was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for four Tony Awards.
Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale, and Walter Abel. It was directed by Mark Sandrich with music by Irving Berlin. The composer wrote twelve songs specifically for the film, the best known being "White Christmas". The film features a complete reuse of the song "Easter Parade", written by Berlin for the 1933 Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer and used as a highlight of the 1948 film Easter Parade, starring Astaire and Judy Garland. The film's choreography was by Danny Dare.
Capote is a 2005 American biographical drama film about American novelist Truman Capote directed by Bennett Miller, and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role. The film primarily follows the events during the writing of Capote's 1965 nonfiction book In Cold Blood. The film was based on Gerald Clarke's 1988 biography Capote. It was released on September 30, 2005, coinciding with what would have been Capote's 81st birthday.
The Grass Harp is a novel by Truman Capote published on October 1, 1951. It tells the story of an orphaned boy and two elderly ladies who observe life from a tree. They eventually leave their temporary retreat to make amends with each other and other members of society.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. In it, a contemporary writer recalls his early days in New York City, when he makes the acquaintance of his remarkable neighbor, Holly Golightly, who is one of Capote's best-known creations. In 1961 it was adapted into a major motion picture of the same name.
Eleanor Perry was an American screenwriter and author.
Nancy "Slim" Keith, Lady Keith of Castleacre was an American socialite and fashion icon during the 1950s and 1960s, exemplifying the American jet set. Keith was married 3 times; first to American film director Howard Hawks, second to American producer Leland Hayward, and finally to British banker and aristocrat Kenneth Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre.
The Thanksgiving Visitor is a short story by Truman Capote originally published in the November 1967 issue of McCall's magazine, and later published as a book by Random House, Inc. in 1968. The story takes the form of a childhood tale about a boy and his bully problem. The story has a strong moral lesson related to revenge. It is a sequel to Capote's A Christmas Memory.
Tru is a 1989 play by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from the words and works of Truman Capote.
Other Voices, Other Rooms is a 1948 novel by Truman Capote. It is written in the Southern Gothic style and is notable for its atmosphere of isolation and decadence.
The Grass Harp is a 1995 American comedy drama film based on the novella by Truman Capote. The screenplay, which is the final work of Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, is adapted from the play. Directed by Charles Matthau, the film features a cast including Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Edward Furlong and Nell Carter. Piper Laurie won the Best Supporting Actress award from the Southeastern Film Critics Association for her performance.
Trilogy is a 1969 American anthology drama film directed by Frank Perry and written by Truman Capote. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.
Larry Grossman is an American composer for theatre, television, film, concerts, and cabaret.
The name Queenie is an affectionate, or pet use, of the term "queen", and is thought to be derived from the Old English word "cwen", meaning 'woman' rather than a reference to the monarch or his wife.
Elf is a musical based on the 2003 motion picture, with a score by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin. The book is adapted by Bob Martin and Thomas Meehan from the film.
"Children on Their Birthdays" is a short story by Truman Capote, published serially in the late 1940s and appearing in A Tree of Night and Other Stories in 1949; it is noted as one of his better quality early short stories.
One Christmas is a 1994 American drama television film directed by Tony Bill, written by Duane Poole, and starring Katharine Hepburn, Henry Winkler and Swoosie Kurtz. It is based on the 1983 short story "One Christmas" by Truman Capote about a young boy who reluctantly leaves his Alabama home to spend Christmas with his estranged father in New Orleans. The film originally premiered on NBC on December 19, 1994.
A Christmas Memory is a musical based on the short story of the same name by Truman Capote, with a book by Duane Poole, lyrics by Carol Hall, and music by Larry Grossman. The show premiered in 2010 at the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Palo Alto. It premiered Off-Broadway in 2014 at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
Gelfante, Blanche H. (2004). The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story (1sted.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN978-0231110990.
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