Capote's Oscar-led Recovery

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday March 4, 2006

Susan Wyndham

Since seeing the wonderful film Capote, I have borrowed a first-edition copy of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood to read, at last, the result of his manipulative intimacy with his murderer subjects. It's a pleasure to hold the collapsing hardcover, printed by Hamish Hamilton in 1966 when the author was still tippling his way around New York. So I assumed such copies would be highly valued.

No, says the Sydney book dealer Nicholas Pounder. "There's plenty of them around. There was so much advance publicity and controversy that they anticipated good sales. You'd want a signed, first American edition from Random House anyway. But really you'd be wanting earlier books by Capote - Other Voices, Other Rooms or The Grass Harp - to make any money."

Pounder has long dealt in Capote's work. In 1987, three years after the writer's death, he went through his estate in Massachusetts, picking some books from among the citations for drunken behaviour. He's right about In Cold Blood. Dozens of first editions on the internet range from $6927 for a presentation copy given to Capote's aunt down to $23 for a worn, jacketless copy like mine.

Meanwhile, bookshops are selling out of the Penguin Classics paperback ($24.95). Penguin Australia sells about 1000 in a normal year, but it has bought in an extra 4000 for starters.

Not happy, John

Venetians are unhappy with their portrayal in John Berendt's book The City of Falling Angels, according to The New York Times. His previous book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, created a tourist boom in Savannah, Georgia, but that is unlikely - and unwanted - in a city already overrun with visitors. "His Venice is not our city," says the director of marketing for La Fenice Opera, Cristiano Chiarot. The mayor, Massimo Cacciari, sniffs, "It's not my habit to comment on books that don't interest me or, for various reasons, I don't like." The Italian translation is selling slowly, says a spokesman for the publisher, Rizzoli. "For Americans it's something new; for Italians it's just not that exotic."

Berendt is at Adelaide Writers' Week and will speak at a Herald/Dymocks literary lunch on March 15 in Sydney. "Obviously I wrote with a foreigner's eye," he says unapologetically. "Foreigners have been writing about Venice forever."

Inside the Nine

News Limited journalists Cindy Wockner and Madonna King have auctioned One-way Ticket, their book about the Bali Nine, to HarperCollins for a six-figure advance. Early publicity says they tell "the untold story" of how the nine young Australians were arrested on heroin trafficking charges. Several family members have co-operated in the examination of their histories and why they took such a risk. With seven books on Peter Falconio's murder in Central Australia, it's likely this won't be the last on the Nine.

Jose replaces Shapcott

The novelist Nicholas Jose has taken over the chair of creative writing at Adelaide University. He replaces author Tom Shapcott, who retired after eight years as the inaugural professor in Australia's first university writing program.

"I was writer in residence here for three months in 2002, which encouraged me to apply," Jose says. "The program is very successful and has a good reputation." Returning to his childhood city after 35 years away, Jose has signed up for three years and doesn't expect to write much. Fifteen new PhD students start this year and Jose is responsible for public events, an annual anthology and the new Wet Ink Magazine (launched by J.M. Coetzee, who teaches in the program). "I'm very interested in the community engagement of the course," Jose says. On Tuesday at Adelaide Writers' Week, he will chair a panel discussion on whether writing can be taught. "The risk is sameness; the positive is, at a time of not many avenues for writers to experiment, this gives them a place they can do that."The Undercover column (Spectrum March 4-5) listed an incorrect date for author John Berendt's appearance at a Herald/Dymocks literary lunch. He will speak on Tuesday, March 14. Bookings on 9449 4366.