I was a teen child of the late 70’s, in a boring small factory town in Michigan.  Books  were my savior.  I would read  AFTER  DARK magazine every month in the Arts Department of my local library! I  was very familiar  with  who Truman Capote was. My coming out  was  about 1978  and  I made it to to Studio  around 1980. No one famous (that I could tell) was there that night but it was so exciting to be there!

I had read about his famous  Black & White balls. “There will never be another first time that somebody like Andy Warhol could step into a room with somebody like Babe Paley,” said Deborah Davis, the author of the 2006 book “Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and the Black and White Ball,” referring to one of Capote’s so-called swans — the socialite wife of William Paley, who built the CBS network.  (* source NY TIMES – read full article).

In an exciting new book  CAPOTE’S WOMEN (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Publishing)  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.