A Christmas Memory: Truman Capote

Tender and bittersweet, these stories by Truman Capote, the author of Breakfast at Tiffany`s, are a captivating tribute to the Christmas season

`We set about choosing a tree. "It should be," muses my friend, "twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can`t steal the star."`

Selected from across Truman Capote`s writing life, these Christmas stories range from nostalgic, semi-autobiographical portraits of childhood to more unsettling tales of darkness beneath the festive glitter. In the Deep South of Capote`s youth, a young boy, Buddy, and his beloved maiden `aunt` Sook forage for pecans and whiskey to bake into fruitcakes, make kites - too broke to buy gifts - and rise before dawn to prepare feasts for a ragged assembly of guests; while in other stories, a lonely woman has a troubling encounter in wintry New York and an unlikely festive miracle, of sorts, occurs at a local drugstore.

Brimming with feeling, these sparkling tales convey both the wonder and the chill of Christmas time.