A Christmas Memory

"A Christmas Memory" is a short story by Truman Capote. Originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963 and then issued in a hard-cover edition by Random House in 1966 to capitalize on Capote's growing popularity following the release of In Cold Blood.

The largely autobiographical story of seven-year-old Buddy and his aging cousin Sook includes the ideas of poverty, loneliness, and death. It was adapted for ABC Stage 67 by Capote and Eleanor Perry. Both their teleplay and the program's star, Geraldine Page, won Emmy Awards. It was again adapted in 1997 by Hallmark and starred Eric Lloyd as Buddy and Patty Duke as Sook.

In 1968, Capote further explored the lives of Buddy and Sook in The Thanksgiving Visitor, which also was adapted for television and earned Page a second Emmy.

Summary

"A Christmas Memory" is about a young boy referred to as Buddy and his distant cousin who does not have a name. The boy is the narrator and claims that his cousin is his best friend. They live in a house with other vaguely described relatives who are described as cruel. The family is very poor, but Buddy looks forward to Christmas every year nevertheless. He and his friend go pick berries and get supplies to make fruit cakes. They send the cakes to people they pretend to know, such as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They live in their own fantasy world together until the cousin lets Buddy have some of the remaining whiskey that was not needed for the cakes. He gets drunk, and the relatives get upset and yell at the friend. The story ends with the boy being shipped to military school and saying how his cousin is suffering from age and dementia.

References

Berman, Matt (2008). "Commonsense" "Commonsense Review"