Synopses & Reviews
They were children growing up next door to each other--she, a tomboy in overalls; he, a summer visitor from New Orleans, always dressed in immaculate white linen. Twenty-five years later he had taken New York's literary world by storm, while she struggled to put pen to paper and sweat out the story of her childhood. He was Truman Capote; she was Harper Lee. They would reunite in the desolate plains of Kansas to create In Cold Blood. And they would start talk of an even greater, unspoken mystery and crime: What happened between them--and who really wrote To Kill a Mockingbrid? How did two innocents from a backwoods Southern town go on to such fame, and why did they stop speaking to each other shortly after? Kim Powers has conjured a sort of death-bed confession from Capote, in which he picks up the phone to Harper Lee one last time to tell her he 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, murder in the heart (and the heartlands), and memories and regret for a past that was, that will never be again.
Synopsis
From the author of the bestselling memoir,
The History of Swimming, comes a novel about Truman Capote, Harper Lee, and the ghosts of the Clutters, the Kansas farm family murdered fifty years ago, in cold blood. Kim Powers imagines the truths Capote and Lee uncovered in Kansas and kept hidden for years; the rumors and revelations that followed the success of
To Kill a Mockingbird, which estranged the former friends; and the confessions Capote makes in his final months that ultimately reunite them.
The ghosts of the Clutters also appear, seeking resolution and revenge. What secrets from that tragic night do the family members confess? With Capote in Kansas, Kim Powers looks at one of the greatest literary mysteries of the twentieth century and creates a haunting tale of what might have been.
About the Author
Kim Powers is an Emmy- and Peabody- Award-winning writer who has worked on ABCs Good Morning America and Primetime. He lives in New York City.