Capote complete

I've read everything now, finally completed on the day I turn 50 -

The Gothic beginning, short fictional slices of life, pointed profiles of the famous, colorful travel sketches, and worldly ventures into journalism

- There's no other author I can say that about.

When Selected Writings arrived in the mail a couple of years ago, I pushed aside a Hemingway I had just started after reading the classic opening paragraph of Breakfast At Tiffany's(also, half a century old, just like me!):

I am always drawn back to places I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. For instance, there is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic furniture, a sofa and fat chairs upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a train. The walls were stucco, and a color rather like tobacco-spit. Everywhere, in the bathroom too, there were prints of Roman ruins freckled brown with age. The single window looked out on a fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened whenever I felt in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it was still a place of my own, the first, and my books were there, and jars of pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so I felt, to become the writer I wanted to be.

And, from there, I thumbed my way onto a memorable ride.