The New York Times
bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife returns with a triumphant
new novel about New York's "Swans" of the 1950s—and the
scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between
literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.
Of all the glamorous
stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley.
Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is
celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste,
especially among her friends—the alluring socialite Swans Slim
Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all
appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels,
influential friends, a high-profile husband, and gorgeous homes. But
beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman—a
woman desperately longing for true love and connection.
Enter Truman Capote.
This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life
personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of
Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into
the enviable lives of Manhattan's elite, along with unparalleled
access to the scandal and gossip of Babe's powerful circle. Sure of
the loyalty of the man she calls "True Heart," Babe never
imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a
storyteller, always a storyteller—even when the stories aren't his
to tell.
Truman's fame is at
its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra,
Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and
White Ball. But all too soon, he'll ignite a literary scandal whose
repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will
seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America's
most sumptuous eras.
‘The
Swans of Fifth Avenue’ review: Would you trust Truman Capote?
By Caroline Preston
February 1
For those of us who
are women of a certain age and have subscriptions to Vanity Fair, the
star-crossed friendship between Truman Capote and socialite Babe
Paley was the stuff of tabloid legend. They met cute in the mid-’50s
when he hitched a ride on the Paleys’ private plane. When her
husband, CBS titan Bill Paley, heard that “Truman” was coming, he
was expecting the former president, not the flamboyant boy author.
Capote soon became Babe’s favorite lunch date and weekend guest who
could be counted on for gossip, flattery and a sympathetic ear. Over
the next 20 years, he became “her analyst, her pillow, her sleeping
pill at night, her coffee in the morning.” She entrusted him,
unwisely, with the most shameful secrets of her sexless marriage.
Like many great
loves, theirs ended in a tragic betrayal. In 1975, Capote published
“La Cote Basque, 1965,” an excerpt from his unfinished novel,
“Answered Prayers.” Over a long, drunken lunch at the famous
restaurant, Lady Ina Coolbirth shares some of the most lurid tales of
her high-society friends. One is about a multimedia tycoon, Sydney
Dillon, who has a squalid one-night stand and desperately tries to
wash the stained bedsheet before his wife gets home. Babe, who was
dying of lung cancer at the time, recognized the similarity to her
husband. Capote had, literally and literarily, aired her dirty
laundry; she refused to speak to him ever again.
In her highly
entertaining new novel, “The Swans of Fifth Avenue,” Melanie
Benjamin investigates the bonds between this mismatched pair and
Capote’s self-destructive urges that eventually ruptured them. The
novel’s narrative structure is a bit like wandering through La Cote
Basque at lunchtime and overhearing snippets of conversation. In
alternating chapters, Capote and Babe offer their own versions of
their friendship. Celebrity characters also weigh in with their two
cents: socialites Slim Keith and Pamela Churchill Harriman, Truman’s
lover Jack Dunphy, Diana Vreeland and Bill Paley.
Benjamin has proved
an able chronicler of the inner lives of women partnered to famous,
narcissistic men. In her bestselling novel “The Aviator’s Wife,”
the introspective narrator, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, examined her
suffocating marriage to the chilly, autocratic Lindy.
But what was the
inner life of Babe Paley, a woman renowned solely for her exteriors —
her Vogue-model face, her best-dressed-hall-of-fame wardrobe, her
exquisitely decorated homes? Benjamin looks for an answer in an
oft-repeated description by none other than Capote himself: “Babe
Paley has only one fault — she’s perfect. Other than that, she’s
perfect.”
Melanie Benjamin is
the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling historical
novel, The Aviator's Wife, a novel about Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her
previous historical novels include the national bestseller Alice I
Have Been, about Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in
Wonderland, and The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, the story of
32-inch-tall Lavinia Warren Stratton, Melanie Benjamin
Photo by Deborah
Feingold a star during the Gilded Age. Her novels have been
translated in over ten languages, featured in national magazines such
as Good Housekeeping, People, and Entertainment Weekly, and optioned
for film.
Melanie is a native
of the Midwest, having grown up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she
pursued her first love, theater. After raising her two sons, Melanie,
a life-long reader (including being the proud winner, two years in a
row, of her hometown library's summer reading program!), decided to
pursue a writing career. After writing her own parenting column for a
local magazine, and winning a short story contest, Melanie published
two contemporary novels under her real name, Melanie Hauser, before
turning to historical fiction.
Melanie lives in
Chicago with her husband, and near her two grown sons. In addition to
writing, she puts her theatrical training to good use by being a
member of the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau. When she isn't
writing or speaking, she's reading. And always looking for new
stories to tell.
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