In this early novel
Truman Capote explored a theme that he would return to repeatedly: the
isolation of a sensitive young boy who is an outsider because of
difference or a parent's death. Narrator Collin Fenwick, orphaned at
age 11, is taken in by his father's cousins, two elderly unmarried
sisters, in a small Southern town. Younger sister Verena owns many of
the businesses in town and is controlling and intimidating. Dolly,
dreamy, sweet, and somewhat flaky, wins the heart of the lonely boy.
Along with the household's long-time black servant, Catherine, Dolly
provides Collin a loving bond. They enjoy jaunts in the countryside,
where they collect herbs for Dolly's tinctures and picnic in a tree
house.
The plot's conflict arises when Verena wants to seek a patent for
Dolly's herbal recipe for dropsy. Dolly rebels by running away to the
tree house, taking along Catherine and Collin. The three are joined by
retired Judge Charlie Cool. While Dolly says she hears the voices of
departed loved ones in the wind whishing through the Indian grass, Judge Cool talks about love being "a chain of
love, as nature is a chain of life." Love blooms for her and the judge
in their refuge, and he proposes marriage. The idyll lasts until a
member of a rescue party accidentally wounds Collin. Dolly and Verena
are reconciled and stay together, but Judge Cool remains close to Dolly.
The Grass Harp
is based on characters from Capote's own life, including his aunt
"Sook" Fault, to whom the book is dedicated. She was a guardian angel
to Capote after he was sent to live with relatives following his
parents' divorce. With the loneliness of his childhood, and his
physical differences (homosexual, only 5 feet 3 inches tall, with a
high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms), Capote knew life outside
the mainstream firsthand.
A sweet story with a lesson about the human heart, The Grass Harp shows
Capote was already an elegant and accomplished writer at age 26.
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