Book review: Truman Capote and the friends he couldn’t help but betray
Melanie Benjamin's historical fiction imagines the friendship between Capote and socialite Babe Paley, drawn together by their sense of having failed to live up to impossible expectations
by Melanie Benjamin
Random House
It may seem a strange comparison, but the lives of Truman Capote, Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson share a common sadness. In different degrees, after producing their major works, none was able to focus enough on their writing to create anything of remotely similar significance.
Melanie Benjamin’s new book The Swans of Fifth Avenue is a historical novel that portrays the close friendship between Capote and Barbara “Babe” Paley, and Capote’s relationship with a number of New York socialites. The novel also imagines what happens during Capote’s ascent as a writer – many critics still consider In Cold Blood his greatest piece of writing – and his later descent into the role of trivial talk show celebrity and massive consumer of alcohol and drugs.