A Tree of Night and Other Stories | |
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First edition cover |
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Author(s) | Truman Capote |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Short story collection |
Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 1949 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 209 pp |
ISBN | n/a |
OCLC Number | 705911 |
A Tree of Night and Other Stories is a short story collection by the American author Truman Capote published in early 1949. The titular short story, "A Tree of Night", was first published by Harper’s Bazaar in October of 1945.[1]
Contents |
The book features a total of eight short stories:
The horror stories in A Tree of Night and Other Stories involve recurring themes of isolation and emotional anxiety. The stories' protagonists are not quite ready to grow up, whether they are adults or children. The adult characters are emotionally isolated and bear unresolved emotional conflicts from childhood. Overall the stories are noted for involving "sexual anxiety and dysfunction without solidly grounded detail."[2]
A Tree of Night and Other Stories received mixed reviews upon its publication. It firmly established Capote as a southern writer along with his contemporaries such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. The book received praise for its "enthralling style" and "remarkable beauty of language," but received criticism for characters who "lack substance."[3]
Helen Garson considers A Tree of Night and Other Stories to have undoubted reader appeal and ranks it as one of Capote's top four works, alongside Other Voices, Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and In Cold Blood.[4]
Steven L. Vaughn comments that A Tree of Night and Other Stories proves to be consistent with Capote's earlier fiction, most notably Other Voices, Other Rooms which he describes as dark and dreamlike.[5]
Sales of the book were approximately 6,750.[6]
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