At the risk of sentimentality, I am both in awe of and indebted to my subjects—Slim Keith, Babe Paley, C.Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill and Marella Agnelli. I have the utmost admiration for their extraordinary stories. And to Truman, whose prose has inspired me since childhood, who is by this point both alter ego and treasured friend, who has been the greatest of joys to write—I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.
I’ve been lucky to have encountered a wealth of support for my work these last few years. Of course there were‘No’s’ along the way, which in retrospect have been as valuable as the ‘Yes’s’. Nothing fires resilience quite like No, you can’t.
Finally, to my parents, who have never once said ‘No’, only ‘Yes’—Yes, you can. Yes, you will. That has meant everything. Your unwavering support has been my greatest strength and most cherished asset.
And to my darling Dom, who has for the last four years shared our lives with a boy genius and six glorious Swans—a packed house. Writing this has been all-consuming, and you’ve lived every breath and step of the journey with me, for which I’m forever grateful.
Over the years, numerous sources have been invaluable to me in recreating Capote’s world. I am particularly indebted to the following authors and titles:
The collected works of Truman Capote, whose cadences are felt in anything I write. Additionally— Marella Agnelli, Marella Caracciolo Chia, The Last Swan; Aline Countess of Romanones, The Spy Wore Red; Judy Bachrach, ‘La Vita Agnelli’ Vanity Fair; Sally Bedell-Smith, Grace and Power, Reflected Glory and In All His Glory ; Marilyn Bender, The Beautiful People; Susan Braudy, This Crazy Thing Called Love; Iles Brody, The Colony; Gerald Clarke, Capote and Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote; Josh Condon, The Art of Flying; Deborah Davis, Party of the Century; Diana DuBois In Her Sister’s Shadow; John Fairchild, The Fashionable Savages; Nick Foulkes, Swans: Legends of the Jet Set Society; Alan Friedman, Agnelli and the Network of Italian Power; David Grafton, The Sisters ; Lawrence Grobel, Conversations with Capote; C.Z. Guest, First Garden; Gloria Guinness, Harper’s Bazaar columns; Anthony Haden-Guest, The Last Party; Brooke Hayward, Haywire; Clint Hill, Mrs. Kennedy and Me; M. Thomas Inge, Truman Capote: Conversations; Slim Keith, Annette Tapert, Slim: Memories of a Rich and Imperfect Life; Shawn Levy, Dolce Vita Confidential; George Plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career; Darwin Porter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams ; Sally Quinn, ‘In Hot Blood’, ‘Hot Blood -and Gore’ The Washington Post; Lee Radziwill, Happy TimesandLee; Lanfranco Rasponi, The International Nomads; Susanna Salk, C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon; William Todd Schultz, Tiny Terror: Why Truman Capote Almost Wrote Answered Prayers; Liz Smith, Natural Blonde and ‘Capote Bites the Hands That Fed Him’, New York Magazine; William Stadiem, Jet Set; Annette Tapert, Diana Edkins, The Power of Style
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Hutchinson
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Copyright © Blackwing Titles Ltd., 2018
Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This novel is a work of fiction. In some cases, real life names and characters appear but their actions and conversations are entirely fictitious and they have not endorsed or sanctioned this account in any way. All other characters and descriptions of events are the products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons or places is entirely coincidental.
The epigraph is an extract from The White Album. Used with the permission of Joan Didion.
First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson in 2018
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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