Thank You to NetGalley, Delacorte Press, and Melanie Benjamin.

Melanie Benjamin is a genius writer in the historical fiction genre. She puts so much time into her research and incorporates it well into the setting, the events, the people. I was excited to read this one as I knew about Truman Capote, his book In Cold Blood, and his friendship with Harper Lee. I did not know Babe Paley and her Manhattan elite circle of friends. I was captivated from page one and couldn't put it down. I was drawn into the settings, Truman Capote, and the Swans of Manhattan and felt like I was either a fly on the wall or right there witnessing the day to day of their lives, the gossip, the highs and lows, and the behind the story of each character. I absolutely loved it!

The most interesting part of the novel came toward the end when everything falls apart for Truman. Not my favorite Melanie Benjamin novel, but I learned a lot about Capote and his swans. I'd love a novel about the relationship between Truman and Harper Lee!

Read this quite a while ago. Very interesting history of a class of people I knew nothing about: the super-wealthy (at least from my perspective) fashion forward women influencers of mid twentieth century United States, based in New York City. They are all real people, many I'd never heard of.

Their lived and loves, habits and recreations, interests and more mark them as superficial and shallow. But many of these women have secrets that none of their friends could never guess.

The "heroine" of the story, Babe, is one of these and we follow her privileged life throughout the story, along with her friendship with Truman Capote, on which the story (it is he who coins the phrase Swans of Fifth Avenue).

Loved the story and highly recommend it if you enjoy true stories, peeking behind the curtains at the legendary rich and famous of the important New York set of mid-century America.

Beautifully written! Melanic Benjamin does an outstanding job capturing a very specific time and place in The Swans of Fifth Avenue. She allows the reader into the clubs and theaters of 1950s/1960s New York and the glittering high society of that decadent era.

We are introduced to Truman Capote and the women who fell for him- models, actresses, society women. Interesting and insightful for fans of Breakfast at Tiffany's!

Even though I had trouble feeling empathy for these wealthy women who circled Truman Capote in New York City. Plenty of gossipy action to keep the reader turning pages.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin is a terrific book about a time and place that the majority of us only saw through fashion magazines and network television. It is also a tale of a lonely man whose desire to belong, overrode all his other judgement; as he lost the world he desired most when he was seduced by celebrity.

"...Languid, lovely, lonely: the swans arched their beautiful necks and turned to gaze at him as he stood rooted to the shore, his feet encased in mud. They fluttered their eyelashes, rustled their feathers, and glided over to their leader, the most beautiful of all. There was no sound save the sigh of their graceful bodies drifting across the water.
Watching from the shore, wringing his hands, willing himself still for once, even as he had a childish urge to hop first on one foot, the the other, he was filled with the old fear; that he wasn't good enough, brave enough, handsome enough, tall enough-enough. Still he hoped, he dreamed, he waited; holding his breath, he fixed his gaze upon the most dazzling of them all, the lead swan. Like he was making a birthday wish, he blew his breath toward her and her alone, praying the wind would catch it and carry it to her..."

Babe Paley ruled New York's high society in the 1950s and 60s. Married to the founder of CBS, William Paley, no event, no party, no function was complete or worth attending if Babe Paley wasn't involved. Babe and her friends were affectionately dubbed the Swans by the up and coming playwright and author, Truman Capote. The Swans loved having Truman around, he was just like one of them, only beneath them. Truman was gay and wrote stories, so for the Swans, he was entertainment. Someone they could plot with and tell their secrets to and behave badly with. Someone that could never hurt them. After all, what could a story teller do and they all fed their own egos with the thoughts that his characters were somewhat based on them. That they were his muse.

But the relationship between Babe and Truman was different from his relationship with the other Swans. There was a love there, more than brother and sister, but never able to be anything but platonic. This tender and vulnerable closeness only made the betrayal worse. After the success of his novella and then movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Capote turns to a much darker subject. The murder of a family on a rural farm in Kansas. The book was In Cold Blood and would make Truman into arguably the premier American writer of his time.

"...Yes, I want to pay you all back, he said to himself. I want to make you jump through the hoops. Amuse me, amuse me! I want you to remember just who I am now. Truman Capote. The acclaimed author of the acclaimed In Cold Blood, the book that everyone is talking about this summer of 1966. The book none of you shallow idiots could ever have written. I'm not just your little True Heart, your favorite dinner guest, your token fag. I'm just as powerful as you..."

But he wasn't. Though the entertainment world found him irresistible, appearing on Johnny Carson and Laugh-In, he still wasn't part of the world of the Swans. He was still just their guest, their True Heart, their little funny gay man. Someone to role out among the other ultra rich society women and entertain and scandalize. Truman Capote was just their puppet until he did the one thing they thought he never would do.

Truman Capote wrote about them. He wrote the short story La Cote Basque 1965 in Esquire Magazine. A thinly veiled story about the Swans and with that, Truman Capote found out what power truly was.

"...He imagined himself this violet, pulsating monster, and then he took another drink and dialed again.
'Mrs. Agnelli asks that you please stop calling.'
'Lady Keith says to tell you to go to hell.'
'Mrs. Guinness has requested that you no longer call.'
'Mrs. Harriman would like you to stop phoning.'
'Mrs. Paley is-is no longer taking your calls.'
And that's when Truman began to cry; he rolled off the chair, threw himself on the carpet, threw himself a tantrum that splashed over him like a hallucination from his childhood, drowning him with its force, and he was alone again, all alone in the dark, and the door was locked and Mama was gone, and when would she be coming back? What if she never came back? What if he died here, alone..."

First off, Melanie Benjamin is one of the best writers putting words together going right now and if you haven't read her work yet, then I don't understand how you can call yourself a reader. Put down that book about horny teenage vampires and pick up a work of literature. Believe me, you will know the difference. I first read Melanie Benjamin when I picked up the novel, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb and was just blown away. That novel changed my idea of what historical fiction can be and is the measuring stick for every other book I read that wanders into that genre.

Now, the Swans of Fifth Avenue is an in depth, tender and vicious character study of a man who wants to belong to a world he was not born into. It is, at times a tale of a man who simply wants to be loved for who he is. In the fifties and sixties, Capote was an openly gay man at a time when being such was not acceptable. Though he may not have publicly come out and said so, it was very hard to miss. In fact, he literally was the caricature of what the American public assumed a gay man was and that may have done him far more harm than good. Truman's desire and need to belong and be a part of a group led him to the Swans and the love he thought they felt for him filled the void inside of him. He could be as flamboyant as he wished with them and they accepted him. Only they really didn't. He was a pet to them, something to add to their collection of oddities and when this pet bit back; they ostracized him.

I am torn somewhat as to who is at fault here. Truman did go too far and spill their deepest and darkest secrets, but as he would lament, what did they expect him to do. He was a writer, so he wrote. But the Swans also are at fault and their treatment of Capote after the story was published may very well have destroyed the man. Taken from the only family he had known.

Melanie has written a terrific novel and her prose takes you right into this world of wealth and privilege and cruelty and vulnerability.

A great read!

The Swans of Fifth Avenue was well written and has interesting characters. It just wasn't an appealing story to me, personally.

I found this book really hard to get into.
It's an interesting premise, but the actual prose is a bit too sugary sweet, without any real substance unfortunately.
The premise drew me in, the idea of New York in the 60s, but sadly the actual story just did not grab me, nor did the characters.
One thing I will say though is that I commend the author for being able to write well rounded, flawed characters instead of the typical protagonist/antagonist, hero/villain kind of stance.
Overall though, this was just not for me.

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York’s “Swans” of the 1950s—and the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends—the alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman—a woman desperately longing for true love and connection.

Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan’s elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe’s powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls “True Heart,” Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller—even when the stories aren’t his to tell.

Truman’s fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he’ll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America’s most sumptuous eras."

This week is called, all the eras I'd visit if I had a time machine...

I have mixed feelings about this book. Melanie Benjamin is a good writer, and the subject matter was interesting. I found that the writing made me feel what I'm sure Benjamin wanted me to feel as the reader, but I also never felt fully engaged with the characters.

I found it hard to follow; the jumps in the timeline weren't always clear to me. I also struggled with the sheer number of characters introduced throughout the book. It felt like one giant name-drop, which was probably on purpose, I know, but still hard to follow. It didn't help that I didn't really like any of the characters, even the ones we got to know. I felt sorry for a lot of them, but they were all selfish, with very few redeeming qualities, making it difficult for me to be overly interested in anything any of them were doing.

I believe a lot of what I didn't like about the writing; the gossipy voice, the name dropping, the jumpy narrative, was all done on purpose to emulate what it must have been like in Truman Capote's head, and in that regard, Benjamin did an excellent job. Even though I didn't enjoy it, I appreciate what she was doing, and can acknowledge the mastery of that. Overall, this was an interesting read, but not one I'd pick up again. I will be sure to try another of Benjamin's books, though, because I do believe she's an excellent writer.

Thank you to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of this book.

Based on a real friendship of socialites and an author taking place at a different time in the USA. Author Truman Capote made a name for himself after writing Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. His fame gave him a ticket to parties in New York that would introduce him to a group of woman famous in their own right, for being fashionistas and marrying men with wealth and stature. Truman’s favorite lady socialite was Babe Paley and he was her favorite as well. This historical fiction author Melanie Benjamin imagined conversations that probably happened within the “Swans”. Eventually leading towards the downfall of Truman Capote and the change of what is fame and who has it. .

Melanie Benjamin really has a knack for finding the voice of the people she is writing about. Everything feels so truthful as if she was actually in the room with the characters she wrote about. Since what she is writing about is historical fiction, the characters are real people but the social interactions are imagined by author.

This book did take me a little longer to fall into and really believe the voices. This could also be because it was the first by Melanie Benjamin that I read in ebook format. I find that I do not connect to the story as well as I do with a physical book. I also like to draw out reading the end of her books because they are just so good.

Historical fiction books are good after a reading slump because if it is written well enough you want to read other books about people the book is based on. This is the 4th book by Melanie Benjamin all historical fictions and all have been so enjoyable. I now have to wait for her next one. I hope the wait is not too long.

http://confuzzledbooks.blogspot.com/2016/05/shannons-review-swans-of-fifth-avenue.html

Darling, the Swans hovered around Truman Capote like hummingbirds to nectar; he was the only one who could truly understand them. Living for lunches they didn't eat, martinis they did sip, clothes they shopped for endlessly that their husbands would never notice, and their doctor appointments. You know sweetheart, the best damn, plastic surgeon in all of Manhattan. They shared their secrets with Truman, giggled with Truman, they trusted Truman. Really, honey, they should never have done that; bless their hearts,

Fascinating story of a family and their trials in life.