{"id":10018,"date":"2024-11-25T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/?p=10018"},"modified":"2024-11-25T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:52:10","slug":"thanksgiving-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/thanksgiving-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Thanksgiving Visitor\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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This Thanksgiving Rare Books and Special Collections features Truman Capote\u2019s short story, “The Thanksgiving Visitor<\/a>.” It first appeared in the November 1967 issue of McCall\u2019s <\/em>magazine; as seen here, it was republished with two other holiday stories in 1996 by Random House in its Modern Library series. \u201cThe Thanksgiving Visitor\u201d is one of the few stories about Thanksgiving by a major American author.1<\/a><\/sup> Capote wrote it soon after he had achieved professional success and widespread recognition for his nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood<\/em>, published in 1965.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Thanksgiving Visitor\u201d is loosely autobiographical, based on Capote\u2019s childhood in early 1930s Alabama. Told in the first person by nine year-old Buddy, it recounts his bullying at school by an older boy, Odd Henderson. While Buddy\u2019s family is relatively prosperous during the depths of the Great Depression, Odd\u2019s family is struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Buddy\u2019s older cousin, Miss Sook, learns of Buddy\u2019s troubles with\u00a0Odd, she invites him to Thanksgiving dinner, a grand and sprawling affair of family members, friends, and neighbors. At Buddy\u2019s objection to his cousin\u2019s generosity, Miss Sook reminds him, \u201cwhen all around us we see people who can\u2019t satisfy the plainest needs, I feel ashamed. . . . The shame I feel is for all of us who have anything extra when other people have nothing.\u201d (p. 78)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the gathering sits down to eat Buddy believes his moment for revenge has come. He announces that he had just seen Odd steal Miss Sook\u2019s prized cameo pin. Miss Sook counters Buddy\u2019s claim, clearing Odd of blame, at which point the boy confesses that he had stolen the pin, returns it, and leaves. Buddy feels betrayed by Miss Sook for having sided with his nemesis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, Miss Sook explains to Buddy that however wrong, Odd\u2019s action had not been calculated, while Buddy had set out deliberately to humiliate Odd in front of everyone at the table. \u201cThere is only one unpardonable sin,\u201d Miss Sook tells Buddy, \u201cdeliberate cruelty.<\/em> All else can be forgiven. That, never.\u201d (p. 104)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This copy was owned by Penelope Creeley and the poet Robert Creeley and was part of his library, which Hesburgh Libraries acquired in 2011<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RBSC will be closed during Notre Dame\u2019s Thanksgiving Break (November 25-26, 2021). We wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanksgiving 2023: Beat Generation Cookbook: Illustrated<\/a><\/em>
Thanksgiving 2022: Turkey for the People<\/a><\/em>
Thanksgiving 2021: The Thanksgiving that Gave Us a Song, a Movie \u2026 and a Cookbook!<\/a><\/em>
Thanksgiving 2020: Happy Thanksgiving to A<\/em><\/a>l<\/a><\/em>l Our Readers<\/em><\/a>
Thanksgiving 2019: \u201cThanksgiving Greetings\u201d from the Strunsky-Walling Collection<\/em><\/a>
Thanksgiving 2018: Thanksgiving from the Margins<\/em><\/a>
Thanksgiving 2017: Playing Indian, Playing White<\/em><\/a>
Thanksgiving 2016: Thanksgiving Humor by Mark Twain<\/em><\/a>
Thanksgiving 2015: Thanksgiving and football<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footnotes<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/a> Michael P. Bibler, \u201cHow to Love Your Local Homophobe: Southern Hospitality and the Unremarkable Queerness of Truman Capote’s ‘The Thanksgiving Visitor’,\u201d MFS Modern Fiction Studies<\/a><\/em>, Vol. 58, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 284.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Thanksgiving Rare Books and Special Collections features Truman Capote\u2019s short story, “The Thanksgiving Visitor.” It first appeared in the November 1967 issue of McCall\u2019s magazine; as seen here, it was republished with two other holiday stories in 1996 by Random House in its Modern Library series. \u201cThe Thanksgiving Visitor\u201d is one of the few … Continue reading \u201cThe Thanksgiving Visitor\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1936,"featured_media":10032,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77969,75052],"tags":[77938,77948],"class_list":["post-10018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-american-literature","category-us-history-culture","tag-book","tag-otd-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1936"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10018"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10044,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10018\/revisions\/10044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}