Swan Song: Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019

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I was fascinated by this book. Surely Truman should have known what would happen when he broke his friends trust writing this book. He thought he was so loved by his friends that eventually he would be forgiven, but this was the start of a slippery slope for Truman sadly drinking and taking drugs to fill the empty void that losing his friends had created. This novel is based on a fascinating real-life story, but I was bored out of my mind reading it: After spending years with the rich and the famous, writer Truman Capote published a text called "La Côte Basque 1965" in an issue of Esquire magazine in 1975, which was intended to be part of his new novel "Answered Prayers" (the unfinished book was then published posthumously in 1986). In it, Capote spills the secrets of some of his high society friends, their thinly veiled identities easy to decipher for contemporary readers. As a consequence, Capote lost many of his closest female friends, socialites who felt like he sold them out for personal gain, while he argued that, well, he's a writer, so he writes.

And it was a pampered, self-obsessed life, but Greenberg-Jephcott beautifully captures the pain and poignancy alongside the privilege. The narrative idea was apparently to write a revenge tale, where the socialites (the "swans") tell their side of the story, and the author introduces a "we"-narration with shifting points of view, which doesn't always work, but is quite interesting. But make no mistake, this is not about empowerment or feminism: The swans sound like absolutely terrible, shallow people who used to hang out with Capote because he was kind of exotic and amusing. They are not glamorous, they are completely void. Capote is turned into a caricature, regularly referred to as "the boy" when he is already a grown-up man (you could argue it's to maintain some connection to the narrative thread about his childhood, but it's derogatory), he is the "elfin" with the "girlish voice", he is a "twisted little cherub", he says sentences like "Weeeelllll, you seeeeeee, Gore was drunk as a skunk, quelle surprise" - I'm sorry, but women who talk about a homosexual man like that are not "beautiful, wealthy, vulnerable women" (the blurb), they are mainly idiots. Granted, Capote himself was known for his vicious comments and he betrayed their trust, but the whole set-up of the story suffers from the fact that everyone is just terrible, and I don't feel like this was an intentional narrative decision. I am in two minds about this book: while I thought there were moments of brilliance, overall I found it indulgent, tedious, and way too long. Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcotts sets out to retell Truman Capote’s final years from the perspectives of his ‘Swans’, high society ladies he first befriended and then betrayed. This is a first novel of extraordinary skill, a book of which Capote would have been proud Alex Preston, The Observer After his Mother abandoned him he must have felt very ambivalent about women and perhaps was incontrovertibly drawn to them, yet wanted to punish them (and thus perhaps unconsciously punish his mother). A tortured soul who indeed perhaps wasn’t, as he feared, altogether loveable. After all, a caring mother, if she loves her child, wouldn’t abandon her child and therefore she must have abandoned him because he was so unloveable (a common extrapolation that features in people with abandonment issues).As my opening quote implies that immediately gave me no common ground to start from, until I realised I I had one thing - I knew the famous poster of a film for which it turns out Capote wrote the originating novella. Brilliantly written, deeply researched, funny, sharp and moving, this wonderful book marks the debut of a major talent. Kate Williams, bestselling author of Josephine As well as Capote the real focus of this book (and sometime first party plural narrators) are his Swans: an inner circle of six privileged, glamorous women for whom he served as: firstly one of their trophies, adding literary genius to their collections of art, jewellery and famous friends; as an empathetic and alway flattering confidant to whom they confided both their juiciest gossip and their innermost secrets. There is much of interest here. Capote was a fascinating, damaged character. There are points in the story where you can pause and switch to YouTube to watch events being referred to (I would very much recommend watching the infamous interview on the Stanley Siegel show where Capote turned up high and rambled - it gives an insight into the state of his life and mind at that point in the story - if you have been reading this book prior to watching that clip, it is heartbreaking).

Author: El-Arifi’s heritage-raised by a Christian Ghanaian/British mother and a Muslim Sudanese/Arab father-is said to be “intrinsically linked to the themes of her stories”. She spent her childhood in the Middle East and, on reaching her formative years, moved to a village outside Sheffield. She initially specialised in theatre directing but now works at Pinewood Film Studios as global senior manager for comms and social media. The Final Strife was longlisted for The Bath Novel Award 2020.In November 1965, "La Cote Basque", a chapter from Truman Capote's work-in-progress, Answered Prayers - The Unfinished Novel, was published in Esquire magazine. It was a thinly veiled and very unflattering expose of the lives of Truman's circle of society friends. It's publication led to those friends deserting Truman and, in turn, to his gradual decline until he eventually died in 1984. Premise:Truman Capote, having reached the pinnacle of literary success after In Cold Blood’s wild acclaim, decides to drop a “literary grenade” in 1975 that will transformhim from society’s darling to persona non grataby betraying the confidences of his inner circle, mid-20th century society’s wealthy and powerful elite – the women he called his ‘Swans’ and collective narrators of Swan Song. Prepublication, Swan Song was the winner of the Bridport Prize Peggy Chapman Andrews Award for a first novel, was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award and shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society New Novel Award, the Myriad Editions First Drafts Competition and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. Scandalous, frenetic, amusing and tragic, this throws open the doors to a privileged world driven by money, sex, power and influence, where stakes are high and, when trust is broken, there’s much to lose. Daily Mail Deal: Six-figure auction in the UK by HarperVoyager, and six-figure pre-empt in the US by Del Rey US

This is a world of celebrity, of rich and privileged people who live superficial, meaningless, empty and sad lives. And it is not a world that I enjoyed spending any time in. It also seems to describe a very old story. There was too much jumping around, too many unnecessary, almost sentimental scenes, and honestly, after the first two or three of the swan's stories, I started mixing them all together, casting Gloria as Marella and Lee as Slim... Answered Prayers,” was, basically, the betrayal of the confidences that Capote gathered during his years as, ‘confessor, confidante, consigliore,’ to the socialites, society hostesses, tycoon’s wives and other wealthy women, who became known as his ‘Swans.’ When a chapter of his, long anticipated book, was published in, ”Esquire,” magazine, his beloved confidantes reacted badly to having their secrets, and barely disguised identities, available for everyone to read; resulting in Capote’s gradual decline. The author writes a historical piece of fiction based on the life of Truman Capote, writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. It is a blend of fact and fiction, and echoes the style and concept of In Cold Blood. Capote had a difficult childhood that he deeply resented, only to leave it far behind as he comes to gain entry to the circles of the powerful, wealthy and famous, admitted to their close inner circles, privy to their deepest secrets. The author drops a litany of famous names and families from the era, outlining their glamorous lives in numerous global locations. Capote collected a bevy of privileged women who adore him, indulging in the latest gossip, whilst deploying a cutting wit. They are his Swans, indulged and indulgent, relationships built up over decades, sources of artistic inspiration and influence. So why would he throw it all away by betraying them in the planned Answered Prayers, a literary gossip read, covered in Esquire magazine, exposing their secrets for all to gawp over and feed on? Swan Song, centered around an author called Truman, is apparently based on a real-life story, although I felt rather as one character did in the novel when told Truman had been invited to his house:

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Greenberg-Jephcott brilliantly captures those occasions, how Capote’s charm sprinkled everything with “magic dust”, how they’d be “wrapped in the cocoon of conversation, doubled with laughter at his witticisms”. Until, fatally, he overstepped the mark and revealed in print what they confided in private. Before the session, Kelleigh asked attendees to send in examples of evocative fiction. Here’s what the group came up with: The Swans in the novel are I think based on real-life characters, but exactly who I didn't get. As another character says: Styan, J. L. (1984). All's Well that Ends Well. Manchester University Press. p.48. ISBN 9780719009990 . Retrieved 21 April 2019. She was renowned as an award-winning novelist, poet and children’s author, as well as short story writer, and this posthumous collection of tales offers another reminder of what a great writer we have lost.