Babe Betrayed: The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Melanie Benjamin's fast-paced read relies on a smooth mix of historical detail, believable dialog and vivid description. The "Swans" were the writer and later, media personality, Truman Capote's coterie of New York society women who hung on his every word as he flattered and cultivated them at the best French restaurants and swank cocktail parties starting in the period of his early fame in the 1950s. The women included Pamela Churchill (later Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France during the Clinton Administration), Nancy "Slim" Keith, an often-married renowned beauty, and most importantly, the enigmatic Babe Paley, the wife of William Paley, the powerful businessman who founded and ran CBS.

The beautiful Babe Paley, who was always perfectly dressed, coiffed and groomed, became, over time, Truman Capote's closest friend, and the two were nearly inseparable for a time, despite her husband and his longtime lover and companion Jack Dunphy. While Babe appeared to have it all, her life was far from the perfection she presented to the world, and she confessed all of her unhappy secrets to Truman – later on, that would prove to be much to her chagrin.

Truman Capote achieved enormous success and celebrity as the writer of Breakfast at Tiffany's, (a novella that appeared in 1958 and was adapted into the classic film with Audrey Hepburn) but most notably, In Cold Blood, a crime novel based on a brutal true-life event, published in 1966. As an aside, I have to say that it was the most chilling and compelling book I can recall ever having ever read, going back to the early 1980s.

However, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Over time, per the many episodes described in Benjamin's book, Truman fell so far that he died in 1984 at just 59, due to his abuse of drugs and alcohol, segueing from the boyish beauty of his youth to the nearly unrecognizable caricature of himself I remember from TV's Hollywood Squares and the film Murder by Death in 1976.

As for Babe, she and her society companions were thinly disguised in Capote's "La Côte Basque 1965", published in Esquire magazine as the opening to his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. Capote used a mix of genuine and fake names but it was apparently obvious to those in the know about New York high society who the real players were, and he revealed many of the humiliating secrets Babe had entrusted to him. Capote quickly became a persona non grata and was abandoned by his former friends, Babe in particular.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue is a compelling novel that describes all this and much, much more, in great detail, with a bevy of all-caps names that will be familiar to many readers.

Later, Babe, a heavy smoker, developed lung cancer and died in 1978, aged just 63: a sad conclusion to the life of a woman who appeared, at least superficially, to have had everything.