"I started writing at eight," Capote had stated. "Out of the blue, without the slightest inspiration from any specific event. I had never met a writer; in fact, I knew very few people who could read [...]. The most interesting writing experience of those years [...] was the simple, everyday observations I recorded in my diary [...]. A kind of journalism, a technique of seeing and listening that in later years would greatly influence my development, although at the time I didn't realize it, because despite the 'formality' of my writing, what I produced, meticulously typed, were more or less fictions." And yet it is this same journalistic voice of Capote's youthful stories, collected in this volume for the first time, that remains one of the most touching characteristics of his early work - along with the meticulous description of every diversity.
(Hilton Als, from the Foreword)

In these fourteen stories, recently discovered in the author's archive at the New York Public Library - early indications of his genius ability to create unforgettable characters - people struggling on the margins of their world are described. A boy experiences the brutality of adult life when he chases an escapee in the forest; young girls live the joy and agony of first love; amidst an unimaginable loss, a woman fights to save the life of a child who has her lover's eyes; refined upper-class women succumb to the decay of cynicism - children and adults alike seek, with the same anxiety, understanding in a treacherous world full of betrayals. Stories of crimes and savage acts, stories of racism and injustice, poverty and despair. But also stories of generosity, tenderness, compassion, and admiration for the grandeur of existence.

Truman Capote's youthful stories significantly contribute to understanding how a boy from Alabama became a modern legend of American letters.