POWERGRAMS

32 32 of Monroeville," airs continuously and is available for $35 in the gift shop. There are many variations of Mockingbird in different languages in glass bookcases. "People come here and want to be able to soak it all up," Carter says while looking out a window, where a man sits at one of six courthouse picnic tables reading the book. "That's what we try to provide." The Truman Capote Exhibit includes letters and postcards to his favorite aunt, Mary Ida faulk Carter, in Monroeville. A scrapbook contains photos of Capote as a child at the Faulk house. In a corner stands his handmade wooden highchair and toys from the yard. There is a Life magazine with Capote on the cover in Kansas alongside "In Cold Blood" actors Robert Blake and Scott Wilson. Nearby, Capote's Underwood manual typewriter is in a glass case. There are copies of all of Capote's books and a Carolina Coin Scale that his father, Arch Persons, sold to a local business. Carter, a Capote relative, says one of the biggest impacts the museum has had was finding letters that include one in which the author in 1959 wrote that Lee "has real talent," based on the book she showed him she was writing. "This was taken by scholars as evidence he had nothing to do with writing 'To Kill A Mockingbird,"' Carter says. Carter was about 5 years old when he met Capote at a garden party Carter's grandmother gave. He later answered a phone call from Capote and the author made small talk with his little "cousin." Carter was 25 when Capote died at age 59 in 1984, having seldom seen his famous relative. "I hate it, but we were discouraged growing up from going to see him," Carter says of the flamboyant writer. "It's one of my biggest regrets in life." The Capote Exhibit includes an annex room with items purchased at a New York City auction from the Joanne Carson estate. There is the baby blanket Capote's mother-figure "Sook" Faulk knitted and that he had at his side when he died in Carson's California home. There is Sook's coat of many colors, a quilt and a blue glass vase and plate of Capote's. "Last year, a crew from Germany spent two days in this room filming for a documentary," Carter says. Carter's grandmother, Mary Ida Faulk Carter, was the museum's first curator, setting up the Alabama Reading Room, among others in the courthouse. The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors from around the world sign book at entrance. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is performed by volunteers on the grounds and inside courthouse. Brannon Bowman portrays Atticus Finch, Maegan Kirkland is Scout.

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