Truman Capote s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South. Intense brilliant . . . . Capote has an astonishing command . . . a magic all his own. --The Atlantic At the age of twelve Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully s Landing his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face--and heart--of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.