''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' is a 1948 novel by
Truman Capote
Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...
. It is written in the
Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing or ...
style and is notable for its atmosphere of isolation and decadence.
''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' is significant because it is both Capote's first published novel and
semi-autobiographical
An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. Bec ...
. It is also noteworthy due to its erotically charged photograph of the author, risqué content, and debut at number nine on
''The New York Times'' Best Seller list, remaining on the list for nine weeks.
Conception
Truman Capote spent two years writing ''Other Voices, Other Rooms.'' He began the manuscript after an inspiring walk in the woods while he was living in
Monroeville, Alabama
Monroeville is the county seat of Monroe County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census its population was 5,951.
Monroeville is known as the hometown of two prominent writers of the post-World War II period, Truman Capote and Harper Lee, w ...
. He immediately cast aside his rough manuscript for ''
Summer Crossing
''Summer Crossing'' is the first novel written by American author Truman Capote. He started the novel in about 1943 and worked on it intermittently for several years before putting it aside. For over 50 years ''Summer Crossing'' was thought to be ...
'' and took up the new idea. He left Alabama and continued work in
. His budding literary fame put him in touch with fellow southerner and writer
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
. Capote joined McCullers at the artists' community,
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March  ...
, in
Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 28,491 at the 2020 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area, which has made Saratoga a popular resort destination for over 2 ...
, and McCullers helped Capote locate an agent (Marion Ives) and a publisher (
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
) for his project. Capote continued work in
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
, and eventually completed the novel in a rented cottage in
Nantucket, Massachusetts
Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...
.
Plot
After his mother's death, 13-year-old Joel Harrison Knox, a lonely,
effeminate
Effeminacy is the embodiment of traits and/or expressions in those who are not of the female sex (e.g. boys and men) that are often associated with what is generally perceived to be feminine behaviours, mannerisms, styles, or gender roles, rath ...
boy, is sent from
to live with his father, who abandoned him at birth. Arriving at Skully's Landing, a vast, decaying mansion on an isolated plantation in Mississippi, Joel meets his sullen stepmother Amy; her cousin Randolph, a
gay man
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
and
dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle desp ...
; the defiant
tomboy
A tomboy is a term for a girl or a young woman with masculine qualities. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and actively engage in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men. W ...
Idabel, a girl who becomes his friend; and Jesus and Zoo, the two black caretakers of the home. He also sees a spectral "queer lady" with "fat dribbling curls" watching him from a top window. Despite Joel's queries, the whereabouts of his father remain a mystery. When he finally is allowed to see his father, Joel is stunned to find he is a mute
quadriplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or t ...
, having tumbled down a flight of stairs after being accidentally shot by Randolph and nearly dying. Joel runs away with Idabel to a carnival and meets a woman with
dwarfism
Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dw ...
; on a Ferris wheel, Joel rebuffs her when she attempts to touch Joel in a sexual manner. Looking for Idabel in a storm, Joel catches pneumonia and eventually returns to the Landing, where he is nursed back to health by Randolph. The implication in the final paragraph is that the "queer lady" beckoning from the window had actually been Randolph, dressed in an old
Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras (, ) refers to events of the Carnival celebration, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday, which is known as Shrove Tuesday. is French for "Fat ...
costume.
Characters
Joel Harrison Knox: The 13-year-old protagonist of the story. Joel is a portrait of Truman Capote in his own youth, notably being delicate, fair-skinned and a natural teller of outrageous tales.
Mr. Edward R. Sansom: Joel's paralyzed father, a former boxing manager.
Miss Amy Skully: Joel's sharp-tongued stepmother, in her late forties and shorter than Joel. Miss Amy's character is reminiscent of Callie Faulk, an older cousin with whom Truman Capote lived in Alabama.
[Berendt, John. "Introduction" in Truman Capote, ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' (2004/1948) Random House. p. xiv.] She is also reminiscent of Capote's maternal grandmother, Mabel Knox, who always wore a glove on her left hand to cover an unknown malady and was known for her Southern
aristocratic
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At the time of the word's ...
ways.
Randolph: Miss Amy's first cousin and owner of Skully's Landing. Randolph is in his mid-30s and is
effeminate
Effeminacy is the embodiment of traits and/or expressions in those who are not of the female sex (e.g. boys and men) that are often associated with what is generally perceived to be feminine behaviours, mannerisms, styles, or gender roles, rath ...
,
narcissistic
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Narcissism exists on a co ...
, and openly
homosexual
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
. Randolph's character is largely imaginary, but is a faint shadow of Capote's older cousin Bud Faulk, a single man, likely homosexual, and role model for Capote while he was growing up in Alabama.
Idabel Thompkins: A gloomy, cantankerous
tomboy
A tomboy is a term for a girl or a young woman with masculine qualities. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and actively engage in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men. W ...
who befriends Joel. Idabel's character is an exaggeration of Capote's childhood friend, Nelle
Harper Lee
Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926February 19, 2016) was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel ''To Kill a Mockingbird''. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Lee has received numero ...
, later the author of ''
To Kill a Mockingbird
''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' has become ...
''.
Florabel Thompkins: Idabel's
feminine
Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered fe ...
and prissy sister.
Jesus Fever: A
centenarian
A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies worldwide are below 100 years, the term is invariably associated with longevity. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living cente ...
,
pygmy
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...
ish,
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
mule-driver at Skully's Landing, where he had been
enslaved 70 years before.
Missouri Fever (Zoo): Jesus' granddaughter who is in her mid-20s. She wears a scarf on her
elongated neck to hide a large scar inflicted by Keg Brown, who was sentenced to a
chain gang
A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was no ...
for his crime. Missouri Fever's character is based on a cook named Little Bit who lived and worked in the Alabama home where Capote lived, as a child, with his older cousins.
Pepe Alvarez: A Latin professional boxer who is Randolph's original obsession and muse, and the prototype that led to Randolph's obsession with young Joel, as it is inferred that Joel resembles Pepe.
Ellen Kendall: Joel's kind, genteel aunt who sends him from New Orleans to live with his father.
Little Sunshine: A short, bald, ugly, African American
hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Description
In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...
who lives at The Cloud Hotel.
Miss Wisteria: A blond
midget
Midget (from ''midge'', a tiny biting insect) is a term for a person of unusually short stature that is considered by some to be pejorative due to its etymology. While not a medical term like "dwarfism", a medical condition with a number of ca ...
who befriends Joel and Idabel at a fair traveling through Noon City.
Major themes
On more than one occasion Capote himself asserts that the central theme of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' is a son's search for his father. In Capote's own words, his father Arch Persons was "a father who, in the deepest sense, was nonexistent." Also: "the central theme of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' was my search for the existence of this essentially imaginary person."
Another theme is
self-acceptance
Self-acceptance is acceptance of self.
Definition
Self-acceptance can be defined as:
* the awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses,
* the realistic (yet subjective) appraisal of one's talents, capabilities, and general worth, and,
* feelings ...
as part of
coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...
. Deborah Davis points out that Joel's thorny and psychological voyage while living with eccentric Southern relatives involves maturing "from an uncertain boy into a young man with a strong sense of self and acceptance of his
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
." Gerald Clarke describes the conclusion of the novel, "Finally, when he goes to join the queer lady in the window, Joel accepts his destiny, which is to be homosexual, to always hear other voices and live in other rooms. Yet acceptance is not a surrender; it is a
liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
. "I am me," he whoops. "I am Joel, we are the same people." So, in a sense, had Truman rejoiced when he made peace with his own identity."
In addition to the two specific themes above, John Berendt notes in his introduction to the 2004
Modern Library
The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
edition, several broad themes including the terror of abandonment, the misery of loneliness and the yearning to be loved.
Another theme is understanding others.
John Knowles
John Knowles (; September 16, 1926November 29, 2001) was an American novelist best known for ''A Separate Peace'' (1959).
Biography
Knowles was born on September 17, 1926, in Fairmont, West Virginia, the son of James M. Knowles, a purchasing ag ...
says, "The theme in all of his
ruman Capote'sbooks is that there are special, strange gifted people in the world and they have to be treated with understanding."
Gerald Clarke points out that within the story Randolph is the spokesperson for the novel's major themes. Clarke asserts that the four major themes of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' are "the loneliness that afflicts all but the stupid or insensitive; the sacredness of love, whatever its form; the disappointment that invariably follows high expectations; and the perversion of innocence."
Publication history
''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' was published in 1979 as part of the 60 Signed Limited Editions (1977–1982) series by the
Franklin Library
The Franklin Mint is a private mint founded by Joseph Segel in 1964 in Wawa, Pennsylvania. The building is in Middletown Township.
The brand name was previously owned by Sequential Brands Group headquartered in New York City, New York. It is ...
, described as a "distributor of great 'classic title' books produced in fine bindings for collectors".
It was published by Random House in January 1948.
Reception and critical analysis
The novel's reception began even before it hit bookshelves. Prior to its publication,
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
optioned movie rights to the novel without having seen the work.
[Capote, Truman, ''The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places'' (New York: Random House, 1973), page 6.] In an article about young American writers, ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine conferred Capote equal space alongside celebrities such as
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...
and
Jean Stafford
Jean Stafford (July 1, 1915 – March 26, 1979) was an American short story writer and novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for '' The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford'' in 1970.
Biography
She was born in Covina, California, to M ...
, even though he had never published a novel.
Literary critics of the day were eager to review Capote's novel. Mostly positive reviews came from a variety of publications including ''
The New York Herald Tribune
The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...
'', but ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published a dismissive review. Diana Trilling wrote in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' about Capote's "striking literary virtuosity" and praised "his ability to bend language to his poetic moods, his ear for dialect and varied rhythms of speech." Capote was compared to
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...
,
Eudora Welty
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel ''The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numero ...
,
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
,
Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel ''Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her sho ...
, and even
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
and
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
. Authors, as well as critics, weighed in;
Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
remarked that Capote was "the hope of modern literature."
After Capote pressured the editor
George Davis for his assessment of the novel, he quipped, "I suppose someone had to write the fairy
Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...
." Some twenty-five years later,
Ian Young points out that ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' notably avoided the period convention of an obligatory tragedy, typically involving suicide, murder, madness, despair or accidental death for the gay protagonist. ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' is ranked number 26 on a list of the top 100 gay and lesbian novels compiled by
The Publishing Triangle
The Publishing Triangle, founded in 1988 by Robin Hardy, is an American association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing industry. They sponsor an annual National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, and have sponsored the annual Triangle Awards prog ...
in 1999. More than fifty years after its publication,
Anthony Slide notes that ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' is one of only four familiar gay novels of the first half of the 20th century. The other three novels are
Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes (, June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel ''Nightwood'' (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist litera ...
' ''
Nightwood
''Nightwood'' is a 1936 novel by American author Djuna Barnes that was first published by publishing house Faber and Faber. It is one of the early prominent novels to portray explicit homosexuality between women, and as such can be considered ...
'',
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
' ''
Reflections in a Golden Eye'', and Gore Vidal's ''
The City and the Pillar
''The City and the Pillar'' is the third published novel by American writer Gore Vidal, written in 1946 and published on January 10, 1948. The story is about a young man who is coming of age and discovers his own homosexuality.
''The City and t ...
''.
When ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' was published in 1948, it stayed on The New York Times Bestseller list for nine weeks, selling more than 26,000 copies.
![Truman Capote by Harold Halma](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Truman_Capote_by_Harold_Halma.jpg)
The promotion and controversy surrounding this novel catapulted Capote to fame. A 1947 Harold Halma photograph, used to promote the book, showed the then-23-year-old Capote reclining and gazing into the camera. Gerald Clarke, a modern biographer, observed, "The famous photograph: Harold Halma's picture on the dustjacket of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' caused as much comment and controversy as the prose inside. Truman claimed that the camera had caught him off guard, but in fact he had posed himself and was responsible for both the picture and the publicity."
[Clarke, Gerald. ''Capote: A Biography'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988).] Much of the early attention to Capote centered around different interpretations of this photograph, which was viewed as a suggestive pose by some. According to Clarke, the photo created an "uproar" and gave Capote "not only the literary, but also the public personality he had always wanted."
In an article titled ''A Voice from a Cloud'' in the November 1967 edition of ''
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'', Capote acknowledged the autobiographical nature of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms''. He wrote "''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' was an attempt to
exorcise
Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...
demons, an unconscious, altogether intuitive attempt, for I was not aware, except for a few incidents and descriptions, of its being in any serious degree autobiographical. Rereading it now, I find such self-deception unpardonable."
[Capote, Truman, ''The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places'' (New York: Random House, 1973), pages 3 & 4.] In the same essay Capote describes how a visit to his childhood home brought back memories that catalyzed his writing. Describing this visit Capote writes, "It was while exploring under the mill that I'd been bitten in the knee by a
cottonmouth moccasin—precisely as happens to Joel Knox." Capote uses childhood friends,
acquaintances, places, and events as counterparts and
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
s for writing the symbolic tale of his own
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
childhood.
Adaptations
On October 19, 1995 Artistic License Films screened a film version of ''Other Voices, Other Rooms'' directed by
David Rocksavage at the
Hamptons International Film Festival
The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October a ...
. The movie starred David Speck as Joel Harrison Knox,
Anna Thomson
Anna Thomson is an American actress known professionally as Anna Levine. She was also credited as Anna Levine Thompson and Anna Thomson.
Thomson was orphaned at an early age and raised by her adoptive parents in New York City and France. She trai ...
as Miss Amy Skully, and
Lothaire Bluteau
Lothaire Bluteau (born 14 April 1957) is a Canadian actor.
Biography
He was born in Montreal, Quebec, and performs in both French and English. Bluteau has worked in theatre, film and television throughout Canada and internationally. He aban ...
as Randolph. The movie had its official US release on December 5, 1997.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Other Voices, Other Rooms (Novel)
1948 American novels
Novels by Truman Capote
Southern Gothic novels
American autobiographical novels
American bildungsromans
Random House books
Novels set in Alabama
American novels adapted into films
1940s LGBT novels
1948 debut novels
Novels with gay themes
Novels set in Mississippi