Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date: October 12, 2021
Genres: Non-fiction, Biography, History, Lifestyle, Pop culture, Vacation Reading
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After all the agita of getting taxes filed on time, I needed a reward. Overindulging in champagne was my first choice, but not a healthy option so I turned to reading that gave me the same light, fizzy feeling and required no thought to enjoy. The book is Laurence Leamer’s Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era—a frothy biography of Truman Capote’s life intermingled with each of the socialites he called his swans. If it sounds familiar, FX recently aired a mini-series based on the book called Feud and while it’s a visual delight of 1960s/1970s fashion and lifestyle the book is SO much more.
Leamer chronicles not just Capote from his early years, but also the lives of the handful of woman he flocked to, such as Babe Paley, Slim Keith, CZ Guest, Marella Agnelli, Gloria Guinness, Pamela Harriman, and Lee Radziwill. All women known to be famous beauties floating serenely on the top of the highest levels of society. What Capote’s Women reveals was how fast and furious each was paddling beneath the surface to maintain her position. To a woman, whether born to wealth or not, they were all trained and ‘educated’ to marry well. Holding onto said marriage (and man) required a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort as there was always another woman circling—sometimes even another swan.
None of this is meant to elicit sympathy because while Capote’s Women is filled with the mindboggling details of lives involving couture clothes, multiple homes, private jets, yachts, and even islands, this is not a glossy love letter to either Capote or the swans. CZ Guest, a woman whose family was of the Boston Brahmin class firmly believed that philanthropy was a waste and that only the wealthy knew how to use money. The people she employed and the goods she bought were her contribution towards the betterment of others. As a group, there wasn’t much truly admirable about any of them.
And Truman? He’s never been held up as a paragon of virtue, but in his youth his writing garnered tremendous critical praise. Until he fell prey to the very lifestyle he was secretly mocking, giving in to a hedonistic lifestyle of alcohol and drugs that robbed him of his talent. It’s a credit to Leamer that even with the plethora of facts and evidence about Capote’s manipulative, vituperative personality, he was also pitiable. Not likeable, by any stretch, but a man ultimately shaped and brought down by his own self-loathing.
All of this unfolds in chapters centered around each of the women and their lives, but with alternating sections about where Capote was at that point in his own life and their relationship. This goes a long way in helping to keep clear who/what/where in this jaw-dropping recreation of extravagant living. Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal and a Swan Song for an Era was the epitome of one of my favorite genres, ‘wealthy people behaving badly’, and that it was fact not fiction made it even more delicious.
If you’re interested in the story of Truman Capote and his swans, but prefer fiction, try a favorite of mine, The Swans of Fifth Avenue.
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