For the wealthy, glamorous and idle, 1950s New York was a glittering whirl of parties, lunches and social maneuvering. At the center of it all were Truman Capote, wildly talented author and flamboyant society darling, and the handful of women he called his "swans." Melanie Benjamin (The Aviator's Wife) explores the intimate, tangled relationships of this circle in her fourth novel, The Swans of Fifth Avenue.
Stylish, gorgeous and married to wealthy, powerful men, the swans embraced Truman first as a curiosity and then as a friend. As he spent more time in their company, Truman became particularly close to Barbara "Babe" Paley. Admired for their external gifts--Truman for his way with words, Babe for her beauty and taste--both harbored deep insecurities that they revealed to one another. Benjamin traces Truman and Babe's unexpected, wholly absorbing friendship and its effect on the other swans.
She evokes her characters and their milieu in prose that sparkles like the diamonds they wear. She draws parallels between the swans' unspoken terror of being abandoned for younger, more desirable women, and Truman's fear of being unable to top the success of his blockbuster book, In Cold Blood. When Truman decides to mine the juicy scandals his swans have shared with him privately for a new story, neither he nor they can imagine the destruction it will cause.
Full of catty asides and moments of startling vulnerability, The Swans of Fifth Avenue is like the swans themselves: elegant, razor-sharp and irresistible. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams