Yen-Lian Liu2022-05-162022-05-162021-03-??http://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/116246Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) centers upon an effeminate teenager, Joel Harrison Knox, who believes that the reappearance of his supposedly aristocratic father will grant him a paternal legacy in accordance with white Southern norms. However, what awaits Joel is a mansion in decay, ruled by an openly-homosexual and manipulative cousin, Randolph. Most importantly, the father turns out to be in a bed-ridden, vegetative state, which drives Joel to map out his uncertain future in this queerly-occupied household. The term “queerness” here, besides its original meanings of "oddity" or "strangeness," also denotes the "non-(hetero)normative" identifications employed in gender displays. But there is another dimension of the novel'squeerness often neglected by critics—namely, the non-normativity with a heterosexual and/or patriarchal mindset. This article contends that the two male heirs to the mansion, Joel and Randolph, exist in a condition of suspension between deviance from the Southern norms and adherence to the same norms, specifically male dominance and/or white supremacy, thus embodying what I call the "queer patriarchy" in the novel. The article also discusses the potential for Joel, in contrast to Randolph, to establish a renewed sense of his male queerness that transcends the patriarchal norms of the South.queer patriarchy(non-)normativityheterosexualityTruman CapoteOther VoicesOther Rooms