OK, I read this because I wanted to see the portrait of Harper Lee in the character of Idabel Thompkins, and now I've seen it. I had the vague feeling that I might have read this book before, when I was too young, and that maybe I skimmed parts and missed the significance of certain things. This time I got the significance, probably, still skimmed and still felt vague.

Sorry, Truman Capote, but at least you are dead and not reading my review. I really liked In Cold Blood, OK, but it freaked me out. I admire your prose style but I prefer the precision in the non-fiction. But, as I understand it, your imagination and your selection tactics do render the non-fiction somewhat fictional in In Cold Blood, so....sigh...but at least you acknowledged in the preface to the second printing of Other Voices, Other Rooms that it was autobiographical. You were innovative with the non-fiction novel, but you spawned the pretend memoir and other blurs, I fear....