An interesting look at the women Truman Capote called his 'swans'.. Lots of details, lots of gossip sbout their lifestyles, affairs etc. Quick read and well written. ( )

I got this audiobook after seeing some of the promotional information and photos for the TV series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. It’s based in this book and I’ve recorded the series but wanted to listen to the book first.

It’s partly a biography of Capote and partly mini biographies of the wealthy socialites he befriended and dubbed “Swans”. It’s very much a story of an era and social class of people that are far from my own experiences.

I was familiar with Capote and some of the women in the book but many were unknown to me. Most of them married multiple times and were ridiculously wealthy jet setters. When Capote betrayed their friendships and published a story featuring extremely thinly veiled portrayals of some of the women who considered him a loyal friend their friendships were shattered.

It’s interesting in an in- depth celebrity magazine style. These people lived luxurious lifestyles but also lived out the idea that money can’t buy happiness.

The book was interesting and I’ll be curious to find out how the TV series compares.

Carrington MacDuffie does a great job of narrating and I would not hesitate to get another book narrated by her. ( )

Strange book. The first half was quite good. The second half sounded excactly like it was written by AI. ( )

So you think you want to be filthy rich? Find someone with yachts and estates and pots of money to marry you and let you spend, spend, spend as long as you stay ultra thin and gorgeous? You can't have any real friends...you can't EAT anything but you can drink like a fish...you can't trust anyone (you especially can't trust Truman Capote, who acts like a true friend while sponging off your largesse)...you certainly can't fall in love (that's for the maids), but hey, you'll be rich and famous. Everyone will want to be invited to your parties and write magazine articles about your "lifestyle"; everyone will want to steal your husband or wife or lover; everyone will secretly want to see you take a nasty fall from the social register. What a world to aspire to. For many years, Truman Capote, whose indisputable talents were justly lauded, claimed to be writing a novel that would be his chef d'oeuvre, comparable to Edith Wharton's revelations of the society she knew so well. The title was to be Answered Prayers, and the point, of course, was that getting and having everything you want does not lead to endless happiness. He spent as much time as possible with the glamorous women he called his swans, gathering dirt material from what he observed and what they confided in him. Pieces of the work in progress were published in Esquire, to such outrage from the models for its characters that poor Truman was abandoned by nearly all of his ladies. Was he as clueless about the effect of his betrayal as he seemed? In any case, the novel never came together, probably because Capote descended into drugs and alcohol so far he could not often get down to work. Laurence Leamer has taken the facts of the lives of all those mostly doomed women and laid it all out here, accomplishing in a non-salacious non-fiction work precisely what Capote claimed to be up to. Be careful what you wish for...there are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers...money can't buy happiness...there's really no there there. I enjoyed this fast read, and I've never been much for society/Hollywood gossip. It is, however, intriguing to explore the lives of these people who, in my opinion at least, had no idea of how to live well. ( )

Nonfiction should not be this enjoyable to read, but this book, centered around the high society women Truman Capote befriended and then wrote about, makes for fun reading and hints at the appeal these women had for the famous writer. It's also very much a picture of the mid-twentieth century, with all the flaws of that era: Gloria von Furstenberg had Nazi connections, Pamela Churchill married the British Prime Minister's son and then proceeded to have a series of extramarital affairs, Lee Radziwill was trapped in a vain competition with her more famous sister Jackie Kennedy. Many of these women felt betrayed after Capote published a story featuring them in thinly veiled disguises, an act which caused the author's social expulsion. This book is filled with the antics of high society, the gossip of a previous age, and yet it manages to reveal something more sympathetic about both Capote and these women than Capote's own writing. ( )