Truman Capote couldn't have fully appreciated his good fortune while writing the true-crime masterpiece "In Cold Blood." By the time his so-called nonfiction novel was published with its many creative licenses-the two killers whose lives he'd dramatized had been executed; they couldn't talk back. He wasn't so lucky with his next major project, "Answered Prayers," which he claimed would be his magnum opus. In one of its chapters, published in Esquire under the title "La Côte Basque, 1965," he exposed close-held secrets of the friends and muses he called his swans: a set of graying socialites who'd achieved fashion-plate fame. They quickly closed ranks-and, in the decade between the excerpt's release and his death, in 1984, Capote failed to complete "Answered Prayers," or any other book-length manuscript.
His exile from Manhattan high society, and his accompanying artistic decline, is the subject of the new season of the Ryan Murphy anthology drama "Feud,"subtitled "Capote vs. the Swans." Capote's 1948 début novel, "Other Voices, Other Rooms," with its queer characters and famously naughty author photo, introduced him as a convention-flouting wunderkind. Those days of youthful defiance are long gone by the time "Capote vs. the Swans" opens, in the late sixties, with Capote (Tom Hollander) suggesting to his closest confidante, Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), that there's no higher happiness than material comfort. After discovering that her husband, Bill, is engaged in his umpteenth affair, Babe is contemplating divorce, but Capote discourages it, citing her age and Bill's stature as the chairman of CBS. "You have a great life," he reminds her. "You have a house in Bermuda, a mansion in Coral Gables, the thing in London.
This story is from the February 12 -19, 2024 (Double Issue) edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the February 12 -19, 2024 (Double Issue) edition of The New Yorker.
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ANTIHERO
“The Boys,” on Prime Video.
HOW THE WEST WAS LONG
“Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1.”
WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Taffy Brodesser-Akner weighs the cost of generational wealth.
TWICE-TOLD TALES
The seditious writers who unravel their own stories.
CASTING A LINE
The hard-bitten genius of Norman Maclean.
TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR
Four years ago, when Ivan Cornejo was a junior in high school, he had a meeting with his family to announce that he was dropping out. His parents were alarmed, of course, but his older sister, Pamela, had a more sympathetic reaction, because she also happened to be his manager, and she knew that he wasn’t bluffing when he said that he had to focus on his career.
THE HADAL ZONE
Arwen Rasmont waits hours at Keflavík International for his flight; they call it as he leaves the men’s room. He walks past the mirrored wall and is assaulted, as usual, by his dead father’s handsome image: high-arched nose, yellow hair.
OPENING THEORY
Ivan is standing on his own in the corner while the men from the chess club move the chairs and tables around.
THE LAST RAVE
Remembering a summer of estrangement.
КАНО
I’ve dated all kinds of women in my life,” the man said, “but I have to say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.”