Truman Capote and Harper Lee were children when they met. Twenty-five years later, Capote had taken New York's literary world by storm, while Lee struggled to put pen to paper and sweat out the story of her childhood in the same city. They would reunite in the desolate plains of Kansas to create In Cold Blood. And they would start talk of an even greater mystery: What happened between them — and who really wrote To Kill a Mockingbird? How did two innocents from a backwoods Southern town achieve such fame, and why did they stop speaking to one another? Kim Powers has conjured a death-bed confession from Capote, in which he picks up the phone to Harper Lee one last time to tell her is being haunted — a tale she doesn't believe, until she is forced to. What do the ghosts of the Clutters want, as they appear one by one to confess their secrets and their anger to the most unlikely mediums of Capote and Lee? Capote in Kansas is an unforgettable "what might have been" — a fantasia of ghosts seeking resolve and revenge, and memories and regret for a past that was, that will never be again.

"Fans of In Cold Blood and To Kill a Mockingbird will welcome this off-beat novel from Powers (The History of Swimming) about the odd relationship between Truman Capote and Harper Lee. In an intriguing opening, Capote calls Lee late at night to relate his fears that he's being haunted by both the victims and the killers featured in his true-crime account of a brutal Kansas killing spree. Those calls trigger Lee's recollections of the twist and turns in their association, as well as the real-life antecedents for her novel about racism and justice in the South. The plot line concerning the haunting is secondary to the flashbacks, making the revelation of who's responsible for the haunting somewhat anticlimactic." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"The long, curious friendship between Truman Capote and Harper Lee is no secret. Capote was Lee's next-door neighbor during her childhood in Monroeville, Ala., and also the inspiration for the wonderfully gnomic character of Dill Harris in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Lee went to Kansas with Capote to help him gather material and conduct interviews for 'In Cold Blood.' Fraternization between famous writers... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) often inspires more interest than their work (how many people know all about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes but haven't read a word of their poetry?), yet until the movie 'Capote' came out two years ago the connection between Capote and Lee remained largely unexamined. Partly, I think, out of deference to Lee, who is now in her 80s and still lives quietly in Monroeville, asking nothing of her many fans but that they leave her alone.

Alas, deference has become as obsolete as china painting. Kim Powers' second book, 'Capote in Kansas,' subtitled 'A Ghost Story,' is an invented narrative of Capote and Lee's personal and professional relationship. Lee may well want to take out a restraining order on anyone who ever proposes to write about her again.

The story's slender premise rests on a pair of rumors. First, that Lee was tortured by gossip that 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' her only novel, was ghostwritten by Capote (gossip he may have fueled). Second, that after publishing 'In Cold Blood,' Capote was so possessed by the Clutters, the Kansas farm family whose murders he documented, that he couldn't write anything else of much importance. According to Powers, both writers' lives were destroyed by the exceptional books that brought them such acclaim.

He tries hardest to get inside the head of Lee, called here by her first name, Nelle. She is in her late 50s when the story begins, living with her sister, Alice, in Monroeville. Portrayed as a grim, shadowy, mannish recluse who can't tell the difference between her own childhood and the one she created for her characters in what's termed 'The Book,' Nelle spends her days in the attic writing confessional letters to her dead brother or out visiting his grave instead of working on a new novel. Across the country in Palm Springs, Truman has devolved into a fat, malicious little drunk, addicted to his favorite '"orange drink" that was 90 percent vodka,' deserted by his society friends, with only his loyal maid, Myrtle, to keep him from utter ruin.

He has devoted 15 years to his 'masterwork,' and plans to throw a party when it's published that will surpass his legendary Black and White Ball. But then Nancy Clutter, the 'dead teenage girl who loved horses,' begins appearing in his bedroom to accuse him of making her famous 'for getting killed.'

These visitations prompt Truman to call Nelle in the middle of the night to beg her to help him exorcise the Clutters. Then he passes out.

'The phone went dead, just like Nancy Clutter.

'Nelle wasn't going back to sleep now; there were ghosts everywhere she turned.

'And they were coming for her as well.'

Besides illustrating Powers' breathless writing style and his fondness for one-sentence paragraphs, this passage fairly well encapsulates the plot of 'Capote in Kansas.' Ghosts, in the guise of memories, guilt, fears and fantasies, as well as actual phantoms, rule the narrative and fuel Truman's escalating paranoia. Feeling guilty about Nelle, he begins sending her anonymous missives encoded on snakebite-kit boxes onto which he's glued magazine pictures. Each box contains a tiny hand-carved coffin. Soon Nelle, too, is receiving nocturnal visits from the Clutters. Meanwhile, determined to propitiate Nancy Clutter, Truman enlists the long-suffering Myrtle and his current lover, an air conditioner repairman, to help him launch a plea for forgiveness printed on kites they fly out in the Palm Springs desert.

Will Nelle figure out who is sending her those weird snake boxes and stop spending so much time in the graveyard? Will Truman be absolved by Nancy? Unfortunately, these questions fail to generate much suspense. Nor is it surprising when Truman's 'masterwork' turns out to be the same word 'typed over and over' (a rather blatant bit of borrowing from Stephen King).

Had Powers confined his ghost story to Capote — who loved notoriety — its outrageousness might seem in keeping with its subject. But Lee has done nothing to deserve the bizarre 'outing' she receives here, fictional or otherwise. Powers claims his intention was not 'to hurt or expose her, but to chase an obsession' with her. Perhaps some obsessions are meant to remain private. Just like the life of a dignified elderly woman who wrote a beloved novel and then, maybe because she had done exactly what she wanted to do, never wrote another."

Reviewed by Suzanne Berne, whose most recent novel is 'The Ghost at the Table', Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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The History of Swimming author Kim Powers is an Emmy and Peabody-winning writer (for his 9/11 coverage) who’s worked at both ABC’s Good Morning America and Primetime. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he wrote the screenplay for the festival-favorite indie film Finding North, which plays frequently on the Sundance Channel and is available on DVD. He was also a staff writer for the AMC series The Lot. Prior to writing, he was an executive developing numerous projects for various film and TV companies in New York, and was a producer for PBS’s Great Performances,. A native Texan, he currently lives in New York City and Asbury Park, New Jersey, with his partner, Tony winning costume designer Jess Goldstein, and their dog Scoop.