by Katharine Elizabeth Monahan Huntley
Almost a decade before Truman Capote introduced Holly Golightly to literary society, he created eerie Miriam, the titular character in a short story published in A Tree of Night and Other Stories, 1949:
“Her long hair was the longest and strangest Mrs. Miller had ever seen: absolutely silver-white, like an albino’s. It flowed waist-length in smooth, loose lines. She was thin and fragiley constructed. There was a special elegance in the way she stood with her thumbs in the pockets if a tailored plum-velvet coat. . . . She touched a paper rose in a vase on the coffee table. “Imitation,” she commented wanly. “How sad. Aren’t imitations sad?”
Next to Truman Capote’s unique writings, imitations can only pale.
Click on the link to view: “La Côte Basque, 1965”