Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era

Product Description

*National Bestseller*New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote’s never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote’s ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his “swans.”

“There are certain women,” Truman Capote wrote, “who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich.” Barbara “Babe” Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy’s sister)—they were the toast of midcentury New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. Capote befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and startling way possible.

Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1958 and
In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer’s block. While en­joying all the fruits of his success, he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel…one based on the re­markable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends.

For years, Capote attempted to write
An­swered Prayers, what he believed would have been his magnum opus. But when he eventually published a few chapters in
Esquire, the thinly fictionalized lives (and scandals) of his closest fe­male confidantes were laid bare for all to see, and he was banished from their high-society world forever. Laurence Leamer re-creates the lives of these fascinating swans, their friendships with Capote and one another, and the doomed quest to write what could have been one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Review

Praise for
Capote’s Women
One of
NY Post’s Must-Have Books for Fall 2021
One of
Town & Country’s Must-Read Books of Fall
One of
Wall Street Journal’s 12 Books to Read for October 2021
One of
PopSugar’s October Must-Reads

“Babe Paley, Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest…they were the stars of ’50s and ’60s society. They were also the women Truman Capote loved, flattered—and betrayed. A fascinating look at their world.” —
People
“Laurence Leamer deftly tells the stories of the stylish, glamorous women whose trust Capote cultivated and then betrayed. Mr. Leamer has delivered a fast-paced, sensitive tale of the swans, their tumultuous lives and their dismay at Capote’s treachery.” —
Wall Street Journal

“In this delicious dissection of the writer and the women he befriended, Laurence Leamer uncovers what it meant to let Capote into your inner circle, how each of these women found friendship and frustration with him, and what happened when he committed the ultimate betrayal.” —
Town & Country

“
Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer is a fascinating nonfiction book about the greatest American novel that was never published.” —
PopSugar

“What
Capote’s Women captures is how these myriad and multilayered friendships came about and nourished him for so long, until his inner demons proved too damning for all but a few of his faithful.” —
BookReporter

“Highly engaging…What Leamer did in his best-selling
The Kennedy Women he has now done for the (mostly) high-born women Capote cultivated, worshipped, and envied.” —
Air Mail
 
“Leamer can be critical when he wants, but he’s always subtle and conscientious of the complexity of these women’s circumstances. His subjects are treated with a delicacy and care that reveal a great sympathy and even occasional admiration.” —
Deep South Magazine  

“This is the story of an Icarus. You know how it’s going to end, but you know that for a while the protagonist is going to soar.
Capote’s Women is about the flight.” —AL.com

“
Capote’s Women is a fascinating read, of a time gone by.” —
Montecito Journal

“It seems we never tire of reading about Truman Capote and his fab