November 2008

My favorite Thanksgiving story doesn’t involve Pilgrims, Indians or the Mayflower.  It takes place in the Depression, so there are elements of struggling, but nothing like the experience of the Puritans.  Truman Capote’s short story “The Thanksgiving Visitor” tells about one Thanksgiving in rural Alabama in 1933. 

Seven year old Truman lives with four elderly cousins due to a custody battle between his parents.  Miss Sook, his cousin in her sixties, is his best friend, “as she was a child herself (and many people thought her less than that . . .), she understood children, and understood me absolutely.  Perhaps it was strange for a young boy to have as his best friend an aging spinster, but neither of us had an ordinary outlook or background, and so it was inevitable, in our separate loneliness, that we should come to share a friendship apart.”

Truman’s enemy was Odd Henderson, a twelve year old boy still in second grade who tortured Truman every day because he was a “sissy.”  For example, Odd tackled Truman and rubbed prickly cockleburs in his scalp. Odd is a member of a proud down and out family.  His mother struggles to care for nine children while his father is in jail.  Miss Sook, a woman too uncomfortable to attend church but who reads her Bible daily, puts “love your enemy” into practice by inviting Odd to Thanksgiving dinner.  Her experience in the Henderson house when she extends the invitation gives the reader an alternative view into Odd’s life. Read the rest of this entry »