TRU STORIES
Despite difficult travel conditions, New York’s literati assembled Tuesday night to indulge in one of their favorite pastimes — gossiping about the late Truman Capote.
The flamboyant author was always known for pulling in the party crowd — tales of his fabled Black and White Ball still resonate — and apparently the draw is still there. Lynn Wyatt; Kay Meehan; Gay Talese; Harry Evans, president of Random House and the evening’s emcee; Alexandra and Arthur Schlesinger; Dominick Dunne, and John Berendt negotiated the snow for the first Truman Capote Literary Trust dinner, at Metronome in the Flatiron district.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” said a surprisingly chipper Lynn Wyatt upon arrival. “I was just stuck in an airport in Washington for six hours. It was dreadful. I just sat there.”
The dinner was in honor of literary critic Alfred Kazin, who was presented with the trust’s lifetime achievement award and a check for $100,000. The author/scholar brought the audience to its feet after reading from his memoir-in-progress, but Capote still stole the show.
“Truman always had the best gossip in town,” said Dunne.
Phyllis Cerf Wagner, widow of Random House founder Bennett Cerf, remembered the first time she met the author at a dinner party in her Manhattan townhouse, where several guests mistook the diminutive, squeaky Capote for her child.
Even the generally staid Kazin, who admitted earlier in the evening that he wasn’t too friendly with Capote, couldn’t resist.
“The last time I was famous was when I was invited to Truman’s Black and White Ball,” he quipped. “I didn’t know anyone there.”