Children on Their Birthdays (short story)

"Children on Their Birthdays" is a short story by Truman Capote, published serially in the late 1940s and appearing in A Tree of Night and Other Stories in 1949; it is noted as one of his better quality early short stories.[1]

This article is about the short story. For the television adaptation, see Children on Their Birthdays.
Children on Their Birthdays
First edition in solo book form (2011)
AuthorTruman Capote
Country United States
LanguageEnglish
GenreSouthern literature
PublisherPenguin (for image shown)
Published in English
1948
Media typePrint
Pages96 (for image shown)
ISBN978-0-14-119586-5

Conception

Capote wrote "Children on Their Birthdays" in the Summer of 1948 while traveling in Europe, from London to Paris, and on to Venice, where he worked alongside Donald Windham.[2]

Plot summary

The story is set in rural Alabama where a precocious 10-year-old girl, Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, moves to town with her mother. The young girl is pretty and attracts the positive attention of the town boys, and the negative attentions of the town girls. The narrator’s younger cousin Billy-Bob and his best friend Preacher fight for Miss Bobbit's affections. She befriends a black girl named Rosalba after the town boys bully her. She enters a talent show being put on by a con man and does a provocative and patriotic dance routine that everyone in the town loves. At the end she gets the con man’s money back for all the people in the town who were cheated out of it, and as she is setting off to leave and go to Hollywood to become a movie star, she gets run over by a bus.

Characters

Miss Lily Jane Bobbit: the 10-year-old protagonist of the story who always goes by Miss Bobbit. Her character is said to be the inspiration for the young socialite Holly GoLightly in Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's.[3] Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill notes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness."[4]

Billy Bob: one of the local town boys who is lovesick for Miss Bobbit.

Aunt El: the narrator's aunt who is a model of traditional values in the community.

Manny Fox: a con artist.

Critical reception and analysis

The short story has been described as resembling less complete writing by Eudora Welty.[5]

It has been praised as "the jewel" of the collection A Tree of Night and Other Stories and is said to be a "perfect illustration of Capote's blending of Southern Folk writing with Jamesian classicism."[6]

Adaptations

As early as 1980 Capote's estranged friend Alan Schwartz asked for permission to sell a television script, which he had adapted with Capote's encouragement. Capote refused, saying he had written a television script himself.[7]

Main article: Children on Their Birthdays

In 2002 "Children on Their Birthdays" was made into an American independent film by director Mark Medoff.

References
Notes
  1. "Books:Private Light (review of A Tree of Night and Other Stories)". Time Magazine. 14 March 1949. Retrieved 2011-09-08.
  2. Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), page 175.
  3. Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), page 485.
  4. Rudisill, Marie & Simmons, James C. The Southern Haunting of Truman Capote (Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House, 2000), page 100.
  5. Price, Reynolds, introduction to The Complete Stories of Truman Capote (New York: Random House, 2005), page xii.
  6. Long, Robert Emmet. Truman Capote, enfant terrible (New York: Continuum, 2008), page 32.
  7. Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), page 175.
Bibliography
  • Capote, Truman (2005). The Complete Stories of Truman Capote (Vintage International ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-9691-6.
  • Clarke, Gerald (1988). Capote, A Biography (1st ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-241-12549-6.
  • Long, Robert Emmet (2008). Truman Capote, enfant terrible (1st ed.). New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-2763-2.
  • Garson, Helen (1992). Truman Capote: A Study of the Short Fiction (1st ed.). Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-805-70851-6.
  • Rudisill, Marie; Simmons, James (2000). The Southern Haunting of Truman Capote (1st ed.). Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House. ISBN 978-1-58182-136-9.
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