Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott: Swan Song, 9781473543935. Hutchinson/ Penguin Random House UK,paperback available July 2019: 9781786090188

No German edition currently (I hope rights have been sold to Germany)

Truman Capote, the literary genius, bad boy and chameleon of the 1950, 60 and 70ties, provided enough material for several novels during his excessive life.  I read Melanie Benjamin’s “The Swans of 5th Avenue” last year and had a blast with her gossipy, sparkling, entertaining novel.  When I heard of Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott’s novel “Swan Song” which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, I just knew I had to read her version of Truman’s tragic relationship with his swans.

Both novels are excellent but different in their prose reimagining Truman Capotes life and that of his swans. “Swan Song” is the more extensive one with 480 pages and the more literary but just as juicy, gossipy and easy to read.  The author switches back and forth between Truman’s voice and that of his “swans” – the stunning grand dames of jet set society during their time:  Babe Paley, Slim Keith, C.Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill and Marella Agnelli.  Their glamorous lives and friendships were shared with unimaginable luxuries, gossipy, boozy lunches in the eating temples of New York, dream like summer vacations on yachts  in the Aegean or Yucatan, Babe’s beautiful meticulously planned dinners and of course Lee’s access to the Kennedys and Onassis families.  Not to mention Truman's famous black and white ball which went into the history books.

They all revealed their most private thoughts and troubles to Truman who in return showered them with the love, attention and affection most of them lacked from their philandering, rich husbands.  He would never betray them unlike their husbands of that they were sure despite Truman’s increasing dependence on alcohol and pills which eventually lead to his ruin.  So what in the world made him betray their love and trust publishing a piece in Esquire with thinly vailed names based on his swan’s lives spilling the beans of their most intimate secrets? The chapters in the novel about the consequences of his actions are exquisite.  Greenberg-Jephcott is brilliant in imagining Truman’s and the swans’ emotional rollercoaster after him being banned from their lives, the years that followed after his betrayal and loss of their friendship, all closely based on biographical data.

“Swan Songs” transported me into a fascinating re-imagined world of a literary yet emotionally crippled genius and his court of beautiful, rich and unusual women. I loved it,   5 stars from me!