âWitness the coming together of Truman Capoteâs voice, the electric-into-neon blaze that is surely one of the premier styles of postwar American literature.ââThe Washington Post Book World
âA great breezy read . . . with Capoteâs trademark wit, but also with genuine youthful awe at the exhilaration of late-forties New York.ââNew York
A lost treasure only recently found, Truman Capoteâs Summer Crossing is a precocious, confident first novel from one of the twentieth centuryâs greatest writers.
Set in New York just after World War II, the story follows a young carefree socialite, Grady McNeil, whose parents leave her alone in their Fifth Avenue penthouse for the summer. Left to her own devices, Grady turns up the heat on the secret affair sheâs been having with a Brooklyn-born Jewish war veteran who works as a parking lot attendant. As the season passes, the romance turns more serious and morally ambiguous, and Grady must eventually make a series of decisions that will forever affect her life and the lives of everyone around her.