A Christmas Memory: One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor (Modern Library)

Three holiday stories in one festive volume from literary titan Truman Capote: “A Christmas Memory,” “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” and “One Christmas”

“Capote, in a bright, fluttering, wheeling way, makes all the tinsel and confetti and embroidery that bind together such delicate emotions as nostalgia and sentimentality come vigorously to life.”—The New Yorker, on “A Christmas Memory”

Here are three holiday stories that Truman Capote himself regarded as among his greatest works of short fiction. “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor” were inspired by Capote’s early years with a family of distant relatives in rural Alabama. These two childhood tales pay loving tribute to an eccentric old-maid cousin, Miss Sook Faulk, who became Capote’s best friend.

In “A Christmas Memory,” Miss Sook, Buddy (the narrator), and their dog, Queenie, celebrate the yuletide in a hilariously tipsy state. In the poignant reminiscence “One Christmas,” six-year-old Buddy journeys to New Orleans for a reunion with his estranged father that shatters many illusions. And in “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” Miss Sook invites an unexpected guest to the holiday meal: the school bully, Odd Henderson, whom Buddy calls “the meanest human creature in my experience.”

Distinguished by Capote’s delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, these three classics are gems that celebrate the unique bonds of friends and family.

Truman Capote was born September 30, 1924, in New Orleans. After his parents’ divorce, he was sent to live with relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. It was here he would meet his lifelong friend, the author Harper Lee. Capote rose to international prominence in 1948 with the publication of his debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Among his celebrated works are Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Tree of Night, The Grass Harp, Summer Crossing, A Christmas Memory, and In Cold Blood, widely considered one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. Twice awarded the O. Henry Short Story Prize, Capote was also the recipient of a National Institute of Arts and Letters Creative Writing Award and an Edgar Award. He died August 25, 1984, shortly before his sixtieth birthday.