Book Club Questions: Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
- Katherine Arkady
- Dec 24, 2024
- 26 min read
Updated: Mar 25
Book Information
What is the title of the book?
Swans of Fifth Avenue
Who is the author of the book?
Melanie Benjamin
When was the book published?
October 25, 2016
What genre does the book belong to?
Historical Fiction
Are there any notable awards or recognitions the book has received?
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2016)
People’s Book of the Week
USA Today’s #1 “New and Noteworthy” Book
Entertainment Weekly’s Must List
LibraryReads Top Ten Pick
What is the main plot or argument of the book?
According to GoodReads:
"Truman Capote’s scandalous, headline-making, and heart-wrenching friendship with Babe Paley and New York’s society “swans” of the 1950s.
Centered on two dynamic, complicated, and compelling protagonists—Truman Capote and Babe Paley—this book is steeped in the glamour and perfumed and smoky atmosphere of New York’s high society. Babe Paley—known for her high-profile marriage to CBS founder William Paley and her ranking in the International Best-Dressed Hall of Fame—was one of the reigning monarchs of New York’s high society in the 1950s. Replete with gossip, scandal, betrayal, and a vibrant cast of real-life supporting characters, readers will be seduced by this startling new look at the infamous society swans."
What is the setting of the book (time and place)?
New York 1950s-1970s
What are the major events or points discussed in the book?
Truman Capote wrote a story called La Côte Basque, 1965 and Esquire published it in the November 1975 edition of their magazine. It read like gossip with thinly-veiled name changes and enough details to prove everything Truman claimed about the women of New York society was true. This novel goes into the before and after of Truman's relationship with the "Swans" these women he was supposedly super close with.
Who are the main characters?
Truman Capote:
Role: A charismatic, talented, and often controversial writer who becomes the darling of New York’s high society.
Character Traits: Charming, witty, and manipulative, but also deeply insecure and ultimately self-destructive.
Babe Paley:
Role: The epitome of elegance and style, she is the wife of CBS founder William S. Paley and one of Truman Capote’s closest friends.
Character Traits: Graceful, beautiful, and the queen of New York society, but also deeply lonely and vulnerable.
Slim Keith (Nancy "Slim" Keith):
Role: A chic and sophisticated socialite, one of the central figures in Truman Capote’s circle.
Character Traits: Stylish, sharp-tongued, and strong-willed. Harboring her own personal sorrows.
Pamela Churchill Harriman:
Role: An ambitious and influential socialite with a knack for reinvention and climbing the social ladder.
Character Traits: Charismatic, resourceful, and determined. Always seeking to enhance her position in society.
C. Z. Guest:
Role: A glamorous socialite known for her elegance and gardening expertise, another member of Capote’s inner circle.
Character Traits: Elegant, composed, and confident. Maintans a distance from the drama around her.
Gloria Guinness:
Role: A wealthy and beautiful socialite, often admired for her fashion sense and style.
Character Traits: Enigmatic, stylish, and poised. Has a complex personal life behind her public image.
Marella Agnelli:
Role: An Italian princess and socialite, known for her sophistication and connection to the European aristocracy.
Character Traits: Sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and reserved, with distinct European flair.
Book Club Questions
1. The Swans all have very complicated relationships with one another—perhaps most notably, Slim and Pamela were both married to the same man. What ties these women together, despite their differences and the sometimes competitive nature of their friendships?
All of these women, at some point in their lives, figured out that the way to success in those days was through a man. Those that figured it out later were more bitter than the ones who figured this out early on.
Babe found out how men lie in her first marriage. On page 33,
"Then Babe divorced Stanley Mortimer...there were rumors that he hit her, plus all his money was tied up in trust, which Babe didn't know about before the marriage."
Gloria figured this out while young. She, on page 81, explains,
"Once she had a little money from working in the local dance hall, where a man would grab the first available girl like he was catching a pollo in a yard, was to buy cream to rub into her feet every night, so that someday, when she slept with the kind of man who would notice, they would be smooth, soft as velvet: aristocratic feet.
"How the first time she did sleep with the kind of man who would notice, he didn't. But he did notice her hands, her nails, and so then she started spending time on them, too. Pinching peso—stealing pesos—to buy more creams, a pumice stone. How she learned to view her body as a man would, by sleeping with many men, many different men. The other girls dressed and preened for one another, but Gloria soon recognized there was no currency in that. She must stand out, be the one men wanted, because men, at their most vulnerable...would pay."
Pamela page 88, learned early on that
"Men, the dear boys, did need to be taken care of, and American women were particularly bad at that, so intent on having their own fun...British women, well, the were born knowing how to take care of men, their own—and everybody else's."
Then goes on to say that she had grown up with the gift.
Slim had a thing and got "Daddy figures" on page 86. The men showed her new heights of society.
C.Z., on page 160 reminisced about her oats being sown while trying to get away from society, but,
"After all those wandering couple of years, she'd hightailed it home, back to the safety of money and privilege and class, married Winston Guest, much older but so damn handsome, a polo player of international renown and possessor of a great fortune and even greater pedigree, and she's resumed the life mapped out for her from birth."
So, because success is, at this time, through a man, they're competing for success by either acquiring money, status, or karmic comeuppance in the case of Pamela and Slim. It's an unfortunate way to frame one's success by the hand of another, but that's what the times were like. So glad it's nothing like that today. (Side eye) Right? (Side eye)
2. Truman is embraced wholeheartedly by the swans when he first appears on the New York social scene. What do you think draws them to him?
It's perfectly summarized on page 244:
"And that was the secret, the wonder of Truman, [Gloria] realized suddenly...Their husbands didn't want to talk to them. [The Swans] grew bored talking to one another, these glorious creatures, for they were all the same. Blonde brunette, tall, short, European or Californian, they were all the same; only the exteriors were different. and they devoted their lives to maintaining this difference, striving to shine, be the jewel who stood out. Yet at night, they took off the diamonds and gowns and went to empty beds resigned to the fact that they were just women, after all. Women with a shelf life.
"And then Truman leapt into their midst, and suddenly the gossip was more delicious, the amusements more diverse. He had sat on the beds of every one of his swans and whispered how beautiful she was, how precious, how devoted he was to her and her alone, and even though they all knew he was saying the same thing to each one of them, they didn't mind. Because, beneath the beauty, they were all so goddamned lonely."
He's not like the other men! (Spoiler alert, he's exactly like other men.)
Truman was the sassy mold-breaker of what was expected of men, so the ladies could break their usual molds and be vulnerable and open with him. They were craving somebody like Truman and when he finally came along, they fought over him.
On page 6:
"I introduced you to him first," Slim reminded Babe after that fateful weekend jaunt to the Paley's home in Jamaica; that startling, stunning weekend when Babe and Truman had found themselves blinking at the first dazzling sunrise of friendship."
This was when Truman was working on the screenplay of Beat the Devil and her husband had had Truman over for dinner.
"No, it was I who first discovered him," Gloria insisted." And she claimed it was soon after Truman adapted The Grass Harp for Broadway. She went to opening night.
"My dear, no. I invited him for the weekend, in Paris, don't you recall?" Pamela broke in." This was allegedly back when Truman had published Other Voices, Other Rooms.
C.Z claims that she introduced Truman to Babe during a Bergdorf shopping spree
Marella claims that the introduction happened when they were all on her yacht.
But,"Babe Paley, cool in a blue linen Chanel suit that did not crease, no matter the radiator heat of a new York summer, didn't reply."
I think that this is because Babe knew she had Truman. All the women needed ownership of the friendship that mattered most to them.
It's just unfortunate that Truman exploited the friendship and trust of the ladies to get ahead in his career.
3. Discuss Babe’s marriage with Bill. What are its strengths? What are its weaknesses?
Bill is always hungry and Babe was happy to feed him in one way, but wanted him to starve in another—more on the latter later.
In Chapter 8, Bill wakes up hungry and the reader learns that Babe has gone above and beyond to make sure that Bill has a buffet—a literal buffet!—of food available to him at all hours:
page 91 "Bill couldn't remember a time when he didn't rise and think, first thing before his feet hit the floor, What am I going to have for dinner? And, of course, before dinner there was breakfast, lunch, snack after snack, dinner after dinner, even; invariably, he was ravenous again around midnight, and Babe had installed a separate kitchen off his bedroom in all their homes, completely stocked with eggs and cheeses and salamis and breads, cookies, sliced vegetables, whole roasted chickens in the refrigerator."
At this point, he's making a sandwich at his office because he also has a kitchenette in his office.
"This, too, was always stocked by someone. Maybe Babe; he didn't really know."
The making of the sandwich while he mentally reviews why he married Babe in the first place is the distant cousin of a character looking at themselves in a mirror to describe to the reader what they look like.
Distant cousin, because Bill is so full of himself that of course he only ever thinks about himself—even while making a sandwich. The reader learns he doesn't like society.
pages 92-93 "He hated society, to tell the truth. Even as he yearned for it, collected it, wore it around his neck like a medal. He craved acceptance, he craved the sensation of knowing that he was the most sought after; he and Babe that is. The Paleys. Mr. and Mrs. The richest, most beautiful most glamorous couple in New York. That's what he wanted. He just didn't want to have to put up with some of the exhausting exercises required to attain his desire, that was all. He left most of it up to Babe, and simply waited for her to tell him what was required of him....
But that's why he married Babe in the first place, wasn't it? Because she knew society, she knew how to navigate it easily, not clumsily; Babe knew where to go and with whom to be seen. Although it wasn't as if he's been some rube off the turnip truck when he'd met her; he was already William S. Paley, chairman of CBS. His first wife, Dorothy, had polished the rough edges, shown him how to dress, where to live, introduced him to art, to performers, politicians, artists; he'd selected her for the job, just as he'd selected Babe, later on, and Fred Friendly to run the news division, and countless other employees, even the most admired faces in the land. They were all his employees, wives included; the famous men and women of CBS, whom he could call on whenever and wherever and they'd show up."
Which is such a depressing way to think about marriage. And Babe was wiling to serve him. Literally!
In Chapter 3, Truman is at Babe's house. They're having fun until she realizes the time.
page 22 "Oh! It can't be seven!...Bill will be home any minute and I'm not ready to greet him. She sits herself at her vanity stool in her "Aladdin's cave" of a closet. Babe explains to Truman: "I always remove my makeup and reapply it just for him."
Apparently, she is late at greeting Bill because he meets them at her closet door. She immediately turns into a lovestruck fool with all of her:
page 25: "Oh I'm so glad you're home. I've simply been bored all day without you. Would you like a drink, darling? I know you would. I'll get it in a jiffy."
This is all in Truman's POV. He notices that Bill doesn't smile until Babe lavishly tells him what's for dinner. Because she's not ready, Bill decides to show Truman all of his rich things in the drawing room. When Babe returns to them, she is perfect:
"Serene as ever. Wearing a column of silk, draped about her tall form like an exquisitely tailored toga, the neckline a deep slash to her sternum, a slim black belt encircling her nonexistent waist. Her makeup was perfect; not a hair out of place. She looked as if she could glide into the Plaza ballroom."
Okay, so Babe's gorgeous, a picture of wealth and beauty. She's even sewn jingle bells into the hem of her couture gown. She's doing everything she can to impress her husband. She makes sure the lighting is even to perfection.
And Bill doesn't care. Even when she is literally
page 27: "settling down at her husband's feet, her skirt rusting a musical crescendo, to remove his shoes, massage his insteps, and suggest, 'Now tell me about your day, my darling. I want to know every detail. You look as if you've been through the ringer, poor baby.'"
Ugh.
Bill doesn't even respond to her!
He just studies Truman.
page 27: "And Truman, watching the scene frowned. His goddess, turned into a mere housewife.
"If this is what her mother had trained her for, then God damn her soul."
Babe Paley was trained for this! In Chapter 4, in The Story of the Three Beautiful Cushing Sisters, we learn about the marriage history of the three girls, specifically Babe's. Her coming-out-party was at the White House because her older sister, Betsey, was FDR's daughter-in-law. The Cushing girls were everywhere important in New York and were documented in the newspapers. Babe worked at Bazaar and then Vogue as a fashion editor. She was a career woman going on shoots, modeling, and having a ball.
Her mother, Gogs, as she was called by the sisters, made sure that she got married to Stanley Mortimer, Standard Oil heir. They divorced.
page 33: "Well, she had to! He came back from war an absolute wreck...There were rumors that he hit her, plus all his money was tied up in trust, which Babe din't know before the marriage. But Babe, true to her mother's training, never let on. Those girls were bred, you see. Bred! Like show horses! Appearances matter most...No troubles...Stick together, put on a happy—perfectly made-up—face!"
In Chapter Five, we hear Babe's anxiety's about always hearing her mother's voice in her head:
page 44: "Sit up straight." Don't fidget." "Write a thank-you note the minute you receive a gift or return home from a party." "Always have fresh flowers, no matter the cost."
Which, I can get behind some of these, but then they just unravel into trauma:
page 45: "Be a perfect little angel for Papa, because he's so rarely home, and when he is, he wants to see only the best of you." "Be a perfect little debutante because sister Betsey is now married to the president's son." "Be a perfect little wife to Stanley, because he's old money. Tuxedo Park."
"Be a perfect wife to Bill, even if he is a Jew. Because that's what he's paying for, and if you're not perfect, he'll replace you so fast your head will spin, and then where will you be? Divorced twice, with four children and no money of your own."
"Be perfect. Because that's what people expect of you now. Because what are you, if not that? Who are you?"
Like damn.
And Bill, while he's a huge dick, was kind of also designed by society to be that way, too:
Back in the sandwich making Chapter 8, Bill continues to think about his career. His father and Uncle Jake had a thriving cigar business. He was starting at the "bottom" with the laborers because that's what his father did. While Bill's dad and Uncle were on a buying trip to Cuba, Bill approached a local radio station about sponsoring a show, The La Palina Hour. Sales "went through the roof."
page 94 "How did he know? Instinct. Gut instinct, from deep within that stomach he so carefully attended. He couldn't analyze it, not if he tried—and he'd been begged to try, many times over the decades. He just knew. He wasn't the only hungry person out there. Everyone was hungry for something—food, for sure. But sometimes it was for laughter, sometimes for tears. Sometimes to recognize themselves, sometimes to be jolted into awareness of something novel and even frightening. Hungry for other people, mostly, and radio did that; it brought people together, made them feel less lonely."
So cool he gets successful. He's bought out several stations around Philly, called the network Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. Bill "got rid of the Phonographic right away." Yes, that CBS is due to Bill Paley. Uber successful. Can get anything—
No, actually not really.
He was Jewish, and back then that was a hard-no to get into places.
page 96 "But every time a door closed, the slam he heard was a word, and the word was Jew. Real or imagined, there it was. Clubs he could never join. Schools his children could never attend. Women he could ever have.
Even Babe, once married to him, approached stops with being married to Bill. In her POV on page 117-118,
"She hurt when Bill hurt, that was true. Once, she'd walked over to a new swim club being built across the road from Kiluna North, in lily-white New Hampshire. She thought the children could join; it would do them good to make friends. She introduced herself as Mrs. William S. Paley, filled out the forms, was polite and sincere in her hope that the Paleys could enjoy the club. But she never heard back; later, a neightbor told her it was because Bill—and his children—were Jewish. But that she, Babe, could join if she liked.
"She's never told Bill this. She had seen him so wounded, so forlorn, when similar rejections had occured. His blue eyes would fill with tears ad his chin would tremble as if he were a little boy and not one of the most powerful men in all of broadcasting. Then the hurt would drain away to wrath, to steely determination, another house or another Picasso or another television station, or another designerdress that Babe didn't really want but that Bill insisted on, insisted on her looking so unattainable that those who rejected him would surely gnash their teeth in despair, to look at what he owned. Whom he owned."
So Bill's self-image is cracked, to say the least. We can empathize with this—to a limit. He still viewed Babe as property and didn't respect her, so I'm not Team Bill today. Especially not when he continues to use Babe.
On page 96. "His "Boston shiksa," with "her society pedigree" could get him "into places he couldn't go alone." Once again, using a woman to climb the ladder. We get a prime comparison of two women, Dorothy Hearst Paley, his first wife, and Babe. Has the gall to be of the belief that his second marriage should be nothing like the first, "a marriage in which the wife taught the husband." Even though he originally "took pains to let others see how much she had taught him."
He just changed his mind because
page 97: "Babe was more astute. She soothed where Dorothy had nagged; she waited where Dorothy would leave impatiently on her own. She anticipated—everything. His hunger, his moods, a tickle in his throat that worried him, and that she couldn't possibly know about but did."
Did society train women to give give give to men and train men to take take take from women?
But no matter how many sandwiches or how many dinners he can sit at in a day, he will always have another hunger. This time, it was
page 102 "that friend of Truman's that he's met at another one of these parties, that cute little Carol Marcus, would be there tonight. She was a blonde cream puff, a Marilyn look-alike, lust his type." He thinks about her naked chest. "And just like that, Bill Paley was hungry again."
Way to Madonna-Whore all women, Bill.
And he can't keep it in his pants. If only he had a wife to consummate with, but no, it was a different sort of hunger. Bill was so hungry that he wanted Truman, Babe's best friend to hook him up with a girl.
page 140 "You know that little blonde, that Carol something, a friend of yours? I think she's just a terrific little gal. I bet she's a real tiger in bed. I'd like to find out, at any rate. Could you arrange it?"
Ugh.
Babe knew he was cheating. There was a story of Bill putting sheets in the oven to dry them off because he needed to clean menstruation blood from them.
Say you don't know how laundry works without saying you don't know how laundry works.
Babe didn't know who, but she know he was stepping out. She wanted to starve him of that opportunity. But she couldn't. Because that was't perfect wife behavior.
And she knows this. To Truman, and only to Truman, does Babe air her grievances:
page 115 "Because Bill—oh, I was furious with him last night! He didn't even see me, did he? Not once did he compliment me. I had that suit made especially for him, because he once said she liked that color. And he didn't even eat a bite of all that food I arranged just for him! He didn't say a word to Betsey and Jock! He has no idea how hard I work to make things just right for him, to give him what he wants, to look how he wants me to—he just takes it all for granted."
Poor Babe.
It wasn't until Babe was diagnosed with lung cancer, wasn't until Bill realized how old he was and how much he'd struggle when Babe was gone, that he realized:
page 257-258: "'I'm such a bastard,' he'd told Truman that afternoon, so eager to find absolution for his sins her spilled them all. 'You don't know how big a bastard I am. I've screwed everyone. Right here in our apartment, in all our beds, in all our homes. I never thought about Babe at all. I wanted what I wanted and I took it. God, one time—one time I was sure she'd find out, because the woman, she left a mess. Blood. You know, that time of the month. And Babe was due home, and it was back when we had that place at the St. Regis, and I couldn't send the laundry out and get it back in time so I scrubbed that stain, scrubbed it like I was Lady Fucking Macbeth. I didn't have any way to dry the sheets, so I baked them in the oven until I could put them on the bed, still wet, and then I fell asleep. And do you know, Babe never once disturbed me? I woke up to find she wasn't even there; she'd come home and found me asleep on the damp sheets, thought I had a fever or something, and left a note saying she'd gone on to Kiluna so she wouldn't bother me. I'm such a bastard. A lousy bastard, and now she's sick, and it's what I deserve. But it's not what she deserves."
Babe, sick from the cancer, is finally able to let the facade of perfection go. She's rightfully impatient with Bill's too little to late apologies:
page 256 "Babe could put into words feelings and emotions that she'd never been able to before. All the books Truman had made her read—none of that had given her the vocabulary the simple diagnosis of "malignancy" had.
'Let's get you into bed now," Bill said, reaching down to help her out of the chair.
'Leave me alone,' Babe snapped. 'I'm perfectly capable of that.'
...Bill bit his lip, accepted his wife's wrath."
Babe later died from her cancer, in the most Babe way:
page 314 "She'd died hating him, he knew. Hating him, but loving Truman.
But granting him the privilege of a grieving husband; one last time, covering for him, and his sins. Allowing the world to see him as he wanted to be, and not who he was.
That was Babe, he thought. Graciously and thoughtfully arranging his life, to the very end."
They're both victims of society, but one does the best with the cards they've been dealt and the other gets mad at the dealer.
I'll let you decide who is who.
5. Why do you think Truman published La Cote Basque, 1965? What point was he making about (or to) the story’s subjects?
Truman "Dan Humphrey'd" himself. Like, he was graced with the close close friendship of New York Society's most influential women, lived the life, and shot himself in the foot with the belief that he wasn't enough. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy of him not feeling good enough about himself so he never made himself good enough. He drank himself into oblivion. He got good advice rom his partner, Jack:
page 277 "'Truman,' Jack has said, aghast, after he'd read the story. "Are you sure about this?'
'What do you mean? Isn't it good?' Truman, reclining on a rubber raft in a pool, dabbled a pudgy red hand in the cool water. He was on his fifth "glass of sunshine"—a tumbler of vodka with a splash of orange juice.
'To be frank, no, it's not. Not your best work my boy.'
'I know someone who's j-e-a-l-o-u-s,' Truman sang, splashing the water after each letter.
'You know that's not true. No, it is. It is true. I've always been jealous.' Jack met Truman's triumphant gaze head-on, not flinching. 'And you know that. You also know that I've never let my jealousy cloud my professional admiration of your work.'
Truman pursed his mouth, took another sip of vodka. 'I know,' was all he said.
'But this isn't very good. And that's not even the most disturbing thing. Truman, don't you think they'll all be upset? All your goddamned swans? The Paleys, especially? Won't they be furious?'
'Nah.' Truman closed his eyes again and tilted his face toward the sky, not caring if he got sunburned. 'They're all too stupid. They'll never recognize themselves. Besides, I'm very clever; I did use a few specific names just to throw others off the scent.'
'If you say so," Jack replied. 'But I'd think twice.'
'I don't have to. Anyway, even if they do recognize themselves, what do they expect? They're the ones who told me everything in the first place. Even after In Cold Blood. Even after I told them, the dumb bunnies, that I was writing a book about society.'
'What about Babe?'
Truman put his sunglasses on and splashed away on his raft.
'Just think twice, Truman, okay? Promise me you'll do that?'
Truman goes on to explain to the reader that he's in a lot of debt and cannot not publish this story. He couldn't let Jack or Esquire see that he was a failing writer.
So he published it and sealed his self-prophesied fate.
I think he was trying to make a move to reach higher status than the ladies. Surely, after all this time, decades after his passing, we're still talking about him, so yeah, perhaps he was the one to make them all infamous. He got what he wanted:
page 41 "But it wasn't enough, and late that night, as Truman turned away from a softly snoring Jack, there was a dancing flame inside of him that could not be extinguished, could never be extinguished no matter how many sleeping pills he took. No matter how many times he told himself that it could be lit again by the morning sun. But there was always more." More beauty to be seen, more places to travel, more acclaim to be won. More love to earn, to barter, to exchange or withhold. To miss, always."
Outside, looking in. Why did he always feel that way, every moment of every day?
...Leaving him behind. He was always left behind.
So he had to try harder. Be more.
...If only he had the best stories, dished the most delicious gossip, dropped the grandest of names.
Then, perhaps. Then. Would he truly belong?"
I think he wrote the story to remind the Swans that they too were human. When the story is finally published in the book, I start to notice more acknowledgement of age and aging out of eras. When the story comes out, the ladies are in their later prime years. None of them fully recovered to their hay day because it was all too late. He stole their grand exit out of society and wanted to stay besties.
I don't know why he thought he could call them up right after and just chat like old times. He betrayed them! I think it speaks to how Truman was betrayed by his mother but he always loved her. The trauma cycle continued and he took down The Swans.
6. Truman and Babe were both heavily influenced by their mothers. In what ways were their childhood experiences similar? In what ways were they different?
Truman's mother, Nina, or Lillie Mae, because Truman was a pathological liar, wanted nothing to do with Truman. She locked him away, left him with sketchy family, ignored him.
page 13: Truman says, "'My mother hated me. Hated me! Despised, loathed.' ... 'She abandoned me to those horrible cousins in Monroeville, and I thought I'd never see her again. She used to lock me in hotel rooms, did you know? Lock me in while she went off with her 'gentleman callers' ... I'd cry and cry but she left instructions, you see. Told the staff not to let me out no matter how I hollered. And I did! But then I'd finally tire myself out and fall asleep, never knowing when—if—she'd come back for me.'
...I could have written the Bible, and she'd still call me, to my face, the greatest disappointment of her life."
So I'm feeling sad for this guy, and he finishes the sad tale with
"'Well,' —and Truman did grin up at [Babe], a sly, satisfied little boyish grin. "I will admit to overcoming my childhood, anyway."
Like for one: at this point I'm 14 pages into this story and learned that he's capable of lying to spin a tale that would induce empathy from others. He's got a "sly, satisfied boyish grin" after trauma dumping onto a new friend? Questionable authenticity here.
And two: Truman Capote's childhood trauma is sewn into every story he weaves together. He has not overcome it, he's not behind it or even on top of it. He's six feet under and drowning.
Childhood trauma is a real big hurdle. It's not to be made light out of. If you or somebody you know is struggling with the lasting effects of their own experiences, always, always, always know that there are organizations and good humans out there that want to help. Do your best to not be a hurt human that hurts humans.
Truman was hurrrrrrrrrrrt. He kept the cycle going.
Babe inherited some BS from her mother, Gogs. The sisters called her Gogs. What could that possibly be a nickname for?
I looked up her government name and, according to Wikipedia, it's Katharine Stone.
...
I wonder what leaps were taken to get to "Gogs." According to Merriam-Webster, gogs means that of "stir," "excitement," or "eagerness.": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gog
Similar to agog and its "full of intense interest or excitement; eager"? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agog
Everybody was going by a different name back then. Babe's name was Barbara, Lucy Douglas Cochrane was called C.Z. because "her idiot brother couldn't pronounce Sissy."
Not even just in the book. A little chat with my AI tells me
"Yes, using nicknames and monikers was indeed popular among high society in New York, particularly in the early to mid-20th century. This tradition added an air of exclusivity, intimacy, and a touch of glamour to their identities. Here are a few points on why and how nicknames were used:
Intimacy and Familiarity: Within elite circles, nicknames created a sense of closeness and personal connection. It signified that one was part of the inner circle, familiar with the informal and private aspects of each other's lives.
Glamour and Identity: Nicknames often reflected the personality or public image of the individual. They could enhance a person's mystique or charisma, making them memorable in social settings.
Social Code: Using nicknames was part of the social code of the time. It set apart those who were 'in the know' from those who were not, reinforcing social hierarchies and networks.
Media and Public Perception: The press also popularized these nicknames, making society figures more accessible to the public while maintaining a degree of separation. This was particularly prevalent with socialites who were frequently in the public eye."
So of course Gogs made sure that her daughter Barbara was known as Babe.
Babe's mother, Gogs, wanted EVERYTHING to do with Babe. Gogs orchestrated EVERYTHING for her daughter's life. I imagine Babe would have happily stayed a career woman at Vogue had her mother not insisted upon marriage.
On page 19, Babe tells Truman:
"'I was raised to marry well,' Babe finally said, with a simple, elegant shrug. 'My mother was a force of nature, although not like yours. She would never have abandoned us. We were her life's work."
On page 20, we get our Gogs lore questions answered when Babe says,
"'Gogs. That's what we called her, after our own children were born."
Babe, even though the reader later finds out how poorly Gogs treated her, she doesn't say anything terrible about her mother. She's still beauty and grace and perfection. Everything her mother bred and raised her to be.
Ugh.
But she broke the cycle! Kind of.
On page 167, she states,
"She didn't like children very much, she had to admit; her arms simply didn't ache to hold her babies; she wasn't tolerant of the odors and stains of childhood. And as the children grew, each with their special problems—Amanda terribly shy; Bill Junior hyper, afraid of his father; poor Kate so permanently stresses she'd lost her hair as a child ... Babe found herself letting each letting them down, incapable of fixing them, molding them, as her mother had molded her. So she withdrew from her own children, and hoped others could do it for her.
Babe did the best for them that she could...at an arms length. She made sure they went to the best schools and got the best toys and were cared for by the best governesses that she compensated very well.
She admits to herself that her children will remember her as a ghost in their lives. Like she's always around but only in the peripherals.
So, a new sort of trauma, but she's not doing what her mother did...so...
9. Do you think Babe forgave Truman, in the end?
Honestly, it's in her nature.
On page 310: "I think part of the whole thing was that he was testing us, testing us to make sure we loved him. Really loved him. Because true love means forgiving, no matter what. And we failed him. We didn't love him that way."
That is trauma talking. He betrayed Babe and all she can think of is how she may have hurt Truman.
She had to be so dejected with the story, with the realization that she opened herself up to be extremely vulnerable with them, and her secrets had been published to the general public—of the nation in a story written by Truman. I think, especially with the cancer, this would have been another blow that she was trained to endure and had become numb to.
She had to be perfect no matter how many people disrespected her. Truman had just made the list and she died wanting him—still wanting the entity that allowed her to be herself. If she denied Truman, then she denied the parts about herself that she loved when she was with him.
Tragic.
12. Who surprised you the most? Why?
On page 6, Slim is talking to Babe and claims, "I introduced you to him first...You just don't remember. But he was mine, my True Heart. It's not fair that you've stolen him from me."
Gloria claims to have been the one to discover him and then Pamela does and then C.Z. and then Marella, but let's, just for a moment:
Imagine if Truman had latched onto Slim Keith instead of Babe Paley. I think, after La Côte Basque, 1965 was published, Slim would have cut Truman's throat and splayed him out across 5th Avenue. I think that Slim would have been Babe if Babe had kept on being Odeal, her imagined personality of an orphan, admired by all for her pluck and wit.
When I found out that Slim and Bill were a thing, my jaw dropped. Slim played the game. And of course she's Lady Ina Coolbirth in La Côte Basque, 1965. Lady Keith?
Come on.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This novel read to me like a cautionary tale. If you're going to want an opulent and wealthy lifestyle, there are sacrifices one needs to make. If you're a woman, this book will showcase realities of marriage that are, honestly, still going on today. I found myself reading certain excerpts and having to pause afterwards.
page 312: "Babe woke up one morning knowing that she wouldn't wake up again; it had been too much effort to swim up from the darkness, and she didn't welcome consciousness and one more glimpse of the sun; one more day lying like a specimen, her family hovering over her, counting every single breath she managed to take.
So she gestured to a nurse, who understood; the nurse brought her a tray filled with her cosmetics, a small mirror on a stand, and Babe Paley did her makeup one last time, with the same calming sense of ritual she's always had when she looked in a mirror, starting first with the foundation, applied with a sponge, so shakily now—the sponge weight like a heavy stone in her translucent fingers although she couldn't really feel it, as her extremities were cold and numb. But she didn't flinch from the mirror, from the ravaged remnants of a person staring back; she knew she could conceal the damage, the flaws, and emerge beautiful, the butterfly from the chrysalis, one last time. She had to pause and take long gasps from the oxygen mask; she had to rest between applications, between the foundation and then the blush and then the concealer, and then the eyeshadow, the intricately applied layers, and then the liner, which, with a grim determination, a gritting of her teeth, she managed to quiet her shaking hands long enough to apply flawlessly, the line straight and smooth, and she lay the liner brush down with a sigh, and felt as if she'd won a battle, the last battle. Now she was ready."
Big sigh. I've been privileged with health and haven't had to think about the work of waking up or even what my last day would be like. For this excerpt, I felt for Babe. I felt as calm as she was in her last day. It was a beautiful snippet of life.
Historical fiction is a favorite genre of mine because, even if this book is fictionalized, the basis still came from real-life history. Sometimes history is wilder than fiction.
Humans are wild—wealthy humans are feral.
Outro
Thank you for checking out my opinion on some, but not all, discussion questions on The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin. It was a joy to finally read this book as it had been on my to-be-read shelf for years. Let me know what you think of the novel in the comments. I'll also link Melanie Benjamin's website so you can see the entire list of Questions and Topics for Discussion.
One of which, I'll pose to you: Can you think of a woman who is the modern equivalent of Babe Paley and her circle of friends?
Author Website: https://melaniebenjamin.com/
Anyway, be kind to other humans and visit your local library!
Katherine Arkady
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