SOURCE: “The Caravan Moves On: Last Stories,” in Truman Capote: A Study of Short Fiction, Twayne Publishers, 1992, pp. 63–73.

In the following essay, Garson provides a thematic analysis of Capote's later work.

“dazzle”

“Dazzle,” which appeared first in Vogue in 1979 and then in the collection Music for Chameleons in 1980, has multiple connections to the new kind of fiction Capote was writing by this time. Although the story is more focused than the pieces in the unfinished Answered Prayers, the works are similar in their revelations of details from the author's life. “Dazzle” also has links to his final story, One Christmas, for both these pieces share subject matter and setting related to Capote's early childhood experiences in New Orleans. Like all the intimate and rather bitter pieces written in the last decade of his life, here the writer offers another version of himself and the people who were part...