[4] Described as "short, porcine, [and] effeminate" by biographer Fred Kaplan[5] and a "niggery, flirty, shrewd, frivolous, perceptive young person" by Christopher Isherwood,[6] Lamkin was often compared to Truman Capote because of his Gothic prose and literary precocity.
The New York Times called the Southern tale "a diffuse examination of the retirement of aristocrats before the vitality of 'new' crude opportunists" but criticized its "overall sense of a low-powered, highly polished Hollywood product".
He also contributed fiction to Mademoiselle and wrote a 90-minute television script about the life of Washington, D.C. hostess and ambassador Perle Mesta in 1956; its intended star was Rosalind Russell though the role was eventually played by Shirley Booth.
In 1950 he was hired to write an English-language version of La Otra, a Mexican film starring Dolores del Río; it was reportedly being written as a vehicle for Joan Crawford.
Produced by Cheryl Crawford and Alan J. Pakula, the play was not a success, being described by The New York Times as "a puzzling drama" that was "uneven [and] baffling" and which bore "a surface resemblance to art in the Tennessee Williams manner.