The Truman show

"Dearest Cecil," wrote Truman Capote from Brooklyn on April 19, 1965, addressing his friend, the English photographer and bon vivant Cecil Beaton. The letter is among those collected in "Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote" (Vintage: 512 pp., $16 paper). "This is just an exhausted scrawl (you owe me a letter anyway), but I wanted you and Kin to know the case is over and my book is coming out next January. Perry and Dick were executed last Tuesday. I was there because they wanted me to be. It was a terrible experience. Something I will never really get over."

By Richard Rayner

October 12, 2008