Summer Crossing

This manuscript, hand-written when Capote was just 19, surfaced at auction in 2004. As one would expect, it provides insight into the young writer just beginning his career. A fine package and disc photography beautifully establish the story's late 1940s' ambience, and Cassandra Campbell's reading intensifies the listening experience. An upper-class young woman is on her own in her family's Fifth Avenue penthouse while her parents and sister summer abroad. Bored and lonely, she develops a turbulent relationship with a Brooklyn WWII veteran clearly outside her social circle and religion. Although the story is repetitious and has a somewhat confused plot, Capote's promising writing and Campbell's sensitive narration make this a valuable listening experience. L.C. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

February 6, 2006
Capote's novel shows the promise of a future master; Campbell's interpretation shows the promise of a good reader. Campbell is better at narration than dialogue as her efforts to differentiate characters, especially males, are forced, and much of her reading is flat or breathy. But she handles some of Capote's best writing with a range and flare that bode well for future audios. Capote told everyone he'd destroyed his earliest effort (produced at age 19), but it recently turned up at Sotheby's, handwritten in four ruled school notebooks. The plot is thin and the characters weak. With her Fifth Avenue Protestant parents off in Europe, 17-year-old Grady rebels by intensifying an affair with and quickly marrying a parking lot attendant from a dysfunctional Brooklyn Jewish family. She soon finds herself pregnant and wallows in regret. But there are glimpses of Capote's signature style that emerged only four years later in Other Voices, Other Rooms
, and a hint of Breakfast at Tiffany's
' Holly Golightly in the character of Grady McNeil. For Capote mavens—or those whose interest has been piqued by the movie—Summer Crossing
is worth a listen. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover.