On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

Comments on this board should be written with the assumption that not all readers have finished the book. Please avoid revealing any spoilers.

One of my favorite books of all time. I re-read it every year on my birthday.

This is a heartwarming gem that gets better every time I read it.

I have not started A Christmas Memory as yet but hope to very soon. Three weeks ago I did read Capote's The Thanksgiving Visitor and enjoyed it. While reading that story I searched the internet for what I could find about Miss Sook ... not much. But that search led me to Capote's Aunt Marie. Edna Marie Faulk, a.k.a. Marie Rudisill, author of several books including Fruitcake:Memories of Truman Capote and Sook. It seems Aunt Marie was a part of that household in Monroeville, Alabama that helped raise the young Truman.

But all this is not Aunt Marie's biggest claim to fame. She went on to rub elbows with the likes of Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise while doing several appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as The Fruitcake Lady. I remember her and thought she was hilarious, still do, though I didn't know at the time that she was related to Capote.
Here is a short clip of her Christmas Q&A part of the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB_gM...

Oh, I loved Leno's "The Fruitcake Lady" .... what a hoot!

How neat, Steve. I remembered her as soon as the tape started. She made me think of my Aunt Pearl, who would set you straight in the sweetest way.

Thanks for that little Christmas nugget, PirateSteve. I had never seen her before, but she's a lot like several older women I have known, including my grandmother. The original "tell it like it is" lady.
I just re-read this little story this afternoon. I hope it's a Christmas classic forever.

I'm guessing everyone of us Southern girls of a certain age have known someone just like this lady, Diane. It has occurred to me that I knew a number of them then, but can't think of a single one that I know now. What a loss.

Well Sara, how about we make a pact to BE one of those ladies in 20 years or so? You can't really get away with that type of thing til you are considered "elderly", but then everyone thinks you're cute for speaking your mind.

lol. I don't know if I can pull it off. You have to be able to do it without seeming bitchy. I suspect these women have a quality I lack. But who knows, at 90 maybe it will kick in (provided I can make it that far).

I just read this one yesterday and loved it. I think I will even re-read it one more time this holiday season, just before Christmas. It made me wish I had a southern childhood, but I am far from ever having anything close to that! A New Yorker through and through, lol.

Every part of the country has its own flavor...I'll bet you have some great New York tales, Candi. In the end it is the people that make the memories so special.

So very true about the people making it special, Sara :)

Candi, Capote had the talent to make anyone who reads this actually believe this WAS their own memory.

Diane, that's it exactly. I could really believe that it was my very own story!

Capote was born in 1924, so we see Christmas celebrated in a different way without all the commercialism. He was a young child at the beginning of the Great Depression. The important thing was the sweet, loving relationship between Capote and Miss Sook.

It's also a bit ironic when compared to the way he spent the last part of his life.

Yes, Diane. It is hard to reconcile this little boy with the man Truman Capote became. How often must he have stopped to contrast the people and life he knew with the one he acquired.

Sook's Fruitcake Recipe
Sook's Famous "Christmas Memory" Fruitcake

2 1/2 lb Brazil nuts
2 1/2 lb White and dark raisins;
-mixed
1/2 lb Candied cherries
1/2 lb Candied pineapple
1 lb Citron
1/2 lb Blanched almonds
1/2 lb Pecan halves
1/2 lb Black walnuts
1/2 lb Dried figs
1 tb Nutmeg
1 tb Cloves
2 tb Grated bitter chocolate
8 oz Grape jelly
8 oz Grape juice
8 oz Bourbon whisky
1 tb Cinnamon
1 tb Allspice
2 c Butter
2 c Sugar
12 Eggs
4 c Flour

Cut the fruits and nuts into small pieces, and coat them
with some of the flour. Cream the butter and sugar
together, adding one egg at a time, beating well. Add the
rest of the flour. Add the floured fruits and nuts, spices,
seasoning, and flavorings. Mix by hand. Line a large cake
tin with wax paper, grease, then flour. Pour the mixture
into the pan and put it in a steamer over cold water.
Close the steamer and bring the water to a rolling boil.
Lower the heat and steam the cake for about
four-and-one-half hours. Preheat oven to around 250
degrees, and bake for one hour.
From Sook's Cookbook: Memories and Traditional Receipts from the Deep South by Marie Rudisill.

Marie Rudisill was the "Fruitcake Lady" referred to by Pirate Steve. She was born Edna Marie Faulk in Monroeville, Al. in 1911. Capote referred to her as Aunt Tiny. She wrote eight books about Truman and Sook. She died in 2006 at the age of 95. That's one helluva fruitcake recipe. Note the eight ounces of bourbon. I've always used bourbon to soak my fruitcakes which I wrapped in cheese cloth. I probably used more than eight ounces periodically pouring more over the cake through the cheesecloth up till Christmas. I topped slices of the fruitcake with soft boiled vanilla custard. Man, good, you bet.

I've never been a big fruitcake fan but this topped with vanilla custard idea may be enough to change my taste, sounds good.
What do you do with the left-over bourbon?

Merry Christmas to all !

Diane wrote: "It's also a bit ironic when compared to the way he spent the last part of his life."

Incredibly ironic. These memoirs are probably the last portraits of Capote's innocence. And even the days of his childhood were often sad considering his mother and father treated him as a pawn in a custody suit in a divorce case. Capote ended up with his Faulk relatives because his mother won that custody battle. Then his mother and her new husband had no room in their lives for Truman. Truman WAS adopted by her husband. His time with his father, Arch Persons, was marked by a string of broken promises, promises to take him to the beach and the like. The Faulks were his one constant. Interestingly enough, Arch Persons ended up in my home town of Tuscaloosa. He had the weight machines that were common in the 50s and early 60s outside businesses. He collected the pennies from those machines. He did remarry. Persons backed into my grandmother's car after we had been shopping at the A&P. I was 6. Persons assured my Grandmother there was no need to call the police giving her a scrawled note with name, address, and telephone number. My Grandfather was horrified. The number was no good. The address was an empty lot. The District Attorney indicted Persons for Leaving the Scene of An Accident. Persons was arrested. And Persons, or someone on his behalf paid the damage. As a young Assistant DA, I scoured through the old files from 1958 and found the case file. I should have kept it as a keepsake, but my scruples wouldn't allow me to do that. Truman Capote's name appeared nowhere in the records of the case. In Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote, he included a letter written by Capote to Arch Persons cooly informing him that he was no longer Truman Persons, that he was Truman Capote and that Persons was no longer his father. What's done to some children in divorces is horrible.

PirateSteve wrote: "I've never been a big fruitcake fan but this topped with vanilla custard idea may be enough to change my taste, sounds good.
What do you do with the left-over bourbon?

Merry Christmas to all !"

Well, considering I swear by Woodruff Reserve, I sip a little here, sip a little there. And, of course, share it with my friends! And, yes. A Merry Christmas to ALL!

I have never been a big fan of fruitcake - but perhaps I have never had a proper one! The mention of bourbon certainly got my attention!

I hate fruitcake, but a few years ago, we received a homemade one from an acquaintance. It was several days before I took it out of it's tin to taste it, just in case she asked me how I liked it. It was absolutely delicious, and so rich that you could only eat a tiny slice at a time. She gave me the recipe, but I've never made one myself.

Lawyer wrote: "Diane wrote: "It's also a bit ironic when compared to the way he spent the last part of his life."

Incredibly ironic. These memoirs are probably the last portraits of Capote's innocence. And even ..."

I love this story, Lawyer...perhaps you should write a book yourself, sounds like you have some worthwhile stories of your own.

As to the fruitcake...I have a friend who makes dozens of them every Christmas and sells them. Believe me, making this kind of fruitcake is a labor of love. Puts those ones you buy in a store to shame and they are the reason fruitcakes have such a bad name.