It would be hard to think of two novelists less alike--stylistically and, for that matter, personally--than Truman Capote and John O'Hara, yet they shared many preoccupations. Both were fascinated by society high and low, by how people climbed or toppled from one rank to the other, and by how sex and money underpinned the entire system.
Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review, May 18, 2014
Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review, May 18, 2014
O'Hara was a guest at Capote's masked ball, but I can find no anecdotes about how and when they met, or what they talked about. I like both their work, but there is nothing much about O'Hara in the Clarke or Plimpton biographies of Truman. In O'Hara's published letters O'Hara simply says that Truman's masked ball was fun, and later when he has a photo of himself taken with his cars, O'Hara makes an affectionate joke about Truman.
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