A Diamond Guitar A Diamond Guitar "A Diamond Guitar" is a short story by Truman Capote, first published in "Harper's Bazaar" in 1950; it is noted as one of his better quality early short stories. The title refers to the prize possession of the younger man, a rhinestone-studded guitar; the guitar serves as the key image of the story. Capote wrote "A Diamond Guitar" in April 1950 during a three-week-long transatlantic freighter crossing from New York to Italy. It is one of three short stories normally published in the same volume as "Breakfast at Tiffany's", first released in 1958. The story is set
Truman Capote tape recorder in favor of semi-fictionalized "conversational portraits". These pieces formed the basis for the bestselling "Music for Chameleons" (1980). Capote underwent a facelift, lost weight and experimented with hair transplants. Despite this, Capote was unable to overcome his reliance upon drugs and liquor and had grown bored with New York by the beginning of the 1980s. After the revocation of his driver's license (the result of speeding near his Long Island residence) and a hallucinatory seizure in 1980 that required hospitalization, Capote became fairly reclusive. These hallucinations continued unabated and medical scans eventually revealed that his brain mass had