I read Capote's In Cold Blood earlier this year, my toes appropriately curled up in horror the whole way. But I've always heard the legend of Capote himself, the troubled young socialite/writer who tattled tales on all his celeb friends and fell out of favor. A personality like that intrigues me and I wanted to read more. I picked up a copy of The Thanksgiving Visitor and Christmas Memory at Landmark Booksellers over in Franklin, TN. The little book felt like a treasure in my hand, light and precious. It's a time of year when I reach for comforts--down comforters, hot cocoa (damn these 60 degree Decembers in Tennessee!). This little book was another comfort, though a disquieting one. The stories are autobiographical in nature--we know that tragedy is waiting for him as we read about his 7 year old self. But it's hard to not fall in love with his best friend, a woman in her 60's called Sook, a woman who is childish and childloving, qualities we should value more when we find them. She is able to go with the little boy into the woods, hike for seeming miles, and return with a lovely Christmas tree the two of them down themselves with a little ax and haul home in a baby carriage. They make whiskey-soaked fruit cakes from ingredients they've saved all year to buy. And then Sook gives her 7 year old cousin a little nip and they have a very festive little dance party, just the two of them. It was such an innocently horrific gesture. I love it. I know I am cheating by reading all of these little short books here at the end of the year--but sometimes a little space is all you need to say wonderful big things. When Sook dies, Capote says he already knew without being told: "And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing me from an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite 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."

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