A Conversation with
LAURENCE LEAMER
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You’ve had a prolific nonfiction career, with a bestselling list of iconic biographies on political and pop culture figures including the Reagans, the Kennedys, Johnny Carson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. What types of stories and people are you drawn to? What drew you to Capote and his world?
I don’t care if my main character is a politician, a movie star, a television personality, or a crusading lawyer. What matters is that they are playing their game at the highest level. Truman was a tiny, gay man from a little town in Alabama with scarcely a high school education. He set out to become the greatest writer of his age, and he came pretty damn close. That is the game played at the highest level and a tale worth telling. How was researching and writing Capote’s Women similar to or different from writing your other nonfiction books? Was there a specific part of the process you liked the most?
It was primarily different because I researched and wrote most of it during the pandemic. I planned to go to Italy to research Marella Agnelli, but I couldn’t do that. Nor could I access Capote’s papers at the New York Public Library. But I made it work out. What I like is taking material from all kinds of diverse sources and working it together into a seamless narrative where the reader doesn’t know or care where the material came from. You’ve also written books on Palm Beach: Madness Under the Royal Palms and Mar-a-Lago . How has Palm Beach sparked your fascination with wealth, celebrity, and scandal?
I am a professor’s son, and when my wife and I purchased our winter home in Palm Beach in 1994, I had no idea what we were getting into. In 1926, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the rich “are different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway retorted, “Yes, they have more money.” Hemingway got the best of it in one
of the most famous exchanges in literary history, but Fitzgerald was right. The rich are different, and for almost thirty years I have been a bemused observer to their world and have attempted to write about it with honesty and depth. The island is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I am fortunate to spend half my time in my Palm Beach condo. There are all kinds of fascinating people, and I have written about many of them. What do you think would have happened if Capote had published Answered Prayers ? Do you see the unfinished manuscript as a tragic loss or a saving grace?
If Capote had published a book based largely on what we know he had written, it would have been savaged by honest critics. But if he had written the book he set out to write, he would have had his masterpiece and we would speak his name in reverential tones. What was your favorite chapter or section of the book to write? What made that part the most enjoyable to craft?
I’ve got to admit, it was the Afterword—and I wasn’t even sure the section belonged in the book. The tale of Joanne Carson and Truman’s ashes was so bizarre, so outrageously funny that I worried it would take away from the overall tone. But Truman loved tales that were bizarre. I was there riding around LA with Joanne holding Truman’s ashes—or half of them—in my lap. I didn’t want to jump into the first person in the last chapter of the book—and the reader doesn’t know I was there, but I definitely was present. When I attended Joanne’s Halloween party dressed as an executor, the other guests thought I had stolen Truman’s ashes and his final manuscript. If you could sit down with any of the women in your book, who would it be? What would you ask her?
I would give almost anything to talk to any of these women, but if I must choose one it would be Babe Paley. I would have only one question: Why? Why did you put up with Bill Paley? Was luxury so important to you that you traded for it with your happiness? Are there aspects of the era of Capote’s New York City that you wish still existed? What, if anything, has lasted?
I always put down social formality. I thought it was absurd that people dressed up to walk down Worth Avenue, Palm Beach’s celebrated shopping street. And I hated the way maître d’s looked potential patrons up and down, and if they weren’t just right there was no available table or they were exiled to Siberia. I realize now how often wrong I was and what good things there were in Capote’s world. A few months ago, my wife and I had dinner at Café L’Europe, one of the island’s finest restaurants. Across from us were two obese men in shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flops eating gluttonously. At another table a party of ten shouted in such a high pitch that it was impossible to talk. When the manager came over to chat, I asked him about this. He said they were losing so much business, they had had to end their dress code. When I walk down Worth Avenue these days, it looks like a locker room. Glamour is dead, and I am sorry it’s gone.
Capote’s Women echoes your previous book, The Kennedy Women , in its exploration into the inner lives of women in a pre-feminist era. What interests you about the female perspective? Were you surprised by anything you learned when writing either book?
When I wrote The Kennedy Women, people told me they were amazed that it had been written by a man. I don’t know how I got it, but I think I have a feminine sensitivity. I wrote about these women as human beings, and in doing so I nailed the female perspective. In that era and probably now, many men were not truly interested in women. They wanted to sleep with them and have them on their arm but not to listen to them. Like Capote, I love talking to women and all my life have had many women friends. They are provocative, daring, insightful, and unafraid of intimacy. As far as what surprised me, I guess I’m always surprised what people will put up with— whether it’s waiting on hold with an airline for four hours or staying married to a lout of a husband so you can have your home in the Hamptons. You recount many complicated and scandalous moments in Truman Capote’s life. What moment do you wish you would have been in the room for? Which one are you glad you weren’t there for?
I would love to have gone along with Truman and Slim Keith when they journeyed by train to Moscow with a company of Porgy and Bess. I wouldn’t want to have been there for much of Truman’s sad, declining years. That’s not how I want to remember him and not what I wrote about more than I felt was necessary. If you could have readers take one lesson or thought away about Truman Capote from Capote’s Women , what would it be? What about from “the swans”?
Truman lived a life of incomparable courage on all kinds of levels. Norman Mailer walked down the street flashing his fists; but when Truman walked those same streets as an openly gay man, that was true courage. He had intellectual and spiritual courage, too, and if we can take just a little of that for our lives what could be better. As for the swans, their lives were often sad, but they walked in a realm of beauty and elegance. That’s almost all gone, but there is nothing wrong about women and men wanting to project images of beauty onto the world.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
SCREWDRIVER RECIPE Ingredients
Before reading Capote’s Women, what did you know about Truman Capote? What is one fact you were surprised to have learned after having read this book? What do you think were Capote’s best and worst attributes? Discuss an instance from Capote’s Women that proves these two points. If Answered Prayers was released in full as Capote had intended, what do you think would have been the aftermath of that publication for him and each of his swans?
1½ ounces vodka Orange juice, freshly squeezed, to top
Steps Fill a highball glass with ice, then add the vodka. Top with the orange juice.
Have you read one of Capote’s works? If so, which is your favorite? If not, which are you most eager to read now? Who was your favorite swan to read about, and why? What do you think each of the swans provided for Capote? What do you think he provided for each of them? On page 93, Leamer wrote, “Nothing enlivened Truman’s days better than a delicious scandal.” Why do you think Capote was so excited and interested in gossip? Why do you think people are naturally drawn to it as well?
RECIPE VA R I AT I O N S Harvey Wallbanger: Adds a float of Galliano, an Italian liqueur
Fuzzy Navel:
What is your favorite scene or chapter in Capote’s Women, and why?
Swaps out the vodka in favor of peach schnapps
Which relationship between Capote’s swans was the most surprising or interesting to learn about, and why? How did these women support or oppose one another? Do you feel any of them were feminists?
Summerthyme Screwdriver:
Discuss the major differences and similarities between Capote’s era of high-society scandals and the celebrity secrets we read about today. If you could have dinner with Capote and ask him one question, what would it be, and why?
for a less-potent, fruitier cocktail
Updates the classic with fresh thyme, bittersweet Aperol, and club soda
Recipe from Liquor.com liquor.com/recipes/screwdriver