The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin left me slightly
conflicted. I loved her previous novel, The Aviator’s Wife, and found the fictionalization of those
historical figures (Anne and Charles Lindbergh) fascinating and also fresh. The
idea of writing historical fiction based on real life characters is not new,
but the way she approached the story (it’s told from Anne’s point of view) and
the way she brought the characters to life made it a page turner. It's also a pretty good story, real or otherwise. Unfortunately,
this was not so with the “swans.” These were a group of real-life New York society ladies
who took in Truman Capote at the start of his career and kept him around as a
sort of pet, until he used all of the juicy gossip that he had acquired over
the years to write a scathing short story that exposed them all for the phonies
and philanderers that they really were.
Maybe it was harder to feel interested in or compassion for
characters who did nothing more than dress well for lunch, but they all felt like
caricatures, Truman especially, and it occasionally came across as nothing
more than a glorified Wikipedia entry. The writing was still solid, and while I
generally don’t like to write negative reviews (cause if you can’t say something
nice…), I’m sure that devotees of Truman Capote’s, or those obsessed with mid-20th
century New York high society, will
surely love this book. But in an era where Real Housewives-like drama is inundating
us from all directions, I’d rather read books that have a little more substance
and a little less backstabbing.
