2025/06/20 by Alessandro Clericuzio, Clericuzio, Alessandro
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Gender #Gore Vidal #Homosexuality #Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis #Modern American Literature Studies #Novel #Photography #Radio, Podcasts, and Digital Media #Southern studies
paper · doi:10.13136/2281-4582/2025.i26.1684
openalex publication_date 2025/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/12/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Truman Capote is one of the most controversial American writers of the post-WWII years, gaining more attention and fame for his persona than for his literary output. Though his celebrity has lasted for decades and has grown at each new project, this paper concentrates on the years preceding – and the time of – the publication of his first novel in 1948. Portraying explicitly gender-bending characters, Other Voices, Other Rooms has fallen into the category of Southern Grotesque, a style that has sheltered his and other Southern writers’ output from the ostracism met by Gore Vidal’s contemporary gay-themed novel, The City and the Pillar. The paper thus addresses the nexus between sexuality and celebrity at a time when homophobia, in the United States, was at its highest peak. Capote’s exploitation of his personal queerness, mirrored in the novel, has granted him fast-track fame, confirming his ability to capitalize on the spectacularization of queer elements.