Review of ​The Grass Harp and A Tree of Night by Truman Capote

​The Grass Harp and A Tree of Night by Truman Capote is a collection of short stories and one novella, The Grass Harp, that focuses on families and children in the south and sometimes New York City. The Grass Harp follows a teenager as he is brought to his aunts’, Dolly and Verena’s, place with his father passing away quite soon after the boy, Collin, is dropped off. Verena is the industrious aunt who has businesses everywhere in the small southern town, and as such she’s quite demanding and strict with Collin and Dolly. As for Dolly, it becomes clear through her interests (e.g. painting a room fully pink, boiling medicine in a tub, etc.) and demeanor, she is disabled. However, Collin, Dolly, and their help, Catherine Cook, make a fine group that helps cook and sell the medicine. One day, Verena returns home with a businessman who wants to get the recipe for Dolly’s cure and make labels for the bottles. She doesn’t like this, and to get away from the businessman, Dolly, Collin, and Catherine all runaway to a treehouse in a field. The first day, they nearly get shot out of their hiding spot because of a boy, Riley, who was looking to hunt squirrels. He leaves them and then a troop of the Sheriff, Judge, and a few other people come to collect them from the treehouse after hearing word from Riley where they were. The Judge joins the group, while the rest are shoed off. When the sheriff and his buddies return, they come with a vengeance trying get the group to return to Verena—though while everyone escapes, they catch Catherine, the only Black person in their group. During their time in the treehouse, they meet a woman who has fifteen children looking for food and to tell Dolly that she hadn’t bad-mouthed her. All while this is going on, back with Verena, the businessman ran off with twelve-thousand dollars of her cash. While in the tree, the Judge and Dolly get married right before the sheriff returns a final time. Though when one of his buddies is nearly choked, he shoots his rifle and the bullet hits Riley in the leg. This just about ends their adventure with Verena taking them back in, but things between the sisters had changed.
 
The other stories in the collection follows: a woman who gets paid for telling a mysterious man about her dreams, a little girl that tries for a talent show while everyone is mesmerized by her but she’s swindled out of her stardom, a boy who tries extra hard in counting the money in a jar put up for guessing, a mysterious girl that shows up at a woman’s house and won’t leave, and a niece returning from attending her uncle’s funeral sitting next to a deaf man and drunk wife. All the stories had an insane amount of charm and craft, but I particularly liked, ‘My Side of the Matter’, which is a man’s recounting of how he nearly got stabbed by one of his wife’s friends. The voice, snappiness, and humor were really striking (albeit misogynistic).
 
As with all of Capote’s other works that I’ve read, this collection entranced me. The language, which is one of its most striking elements rolls you along with this confident and propulsive pace. Capote, it seems, had an internal rhythm of language that makes descriptions of the landscape or of people magical. The dialogue and quips were so memorable as well, particularly in ‘My Side of the Matter’. It is also surprising that ‘The Grass Harp’ was made into a musical that, while unfortunate that it flopped, still has its soundtrack online. There so much to say about Capote’s brilliance, but I’ll just leave it at this: read this book!
 
Final Rating: 5/5