Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story, by Kim Powers. Carrol & Graf, 256
pages, $23.99 hardcover.As this fantasia rooted in reality opens, Truman Capote is weeks away from dying, despondent that his friends have deserted him, drowning in drink and drugs (fact), and haunted by nightmare visits from the Clutters (fiction) - the Kansas family whose massacre inspired Capote’s true-crime triumph, _In Cold Blood_. In his delirium, he reaches out (fiction) to Harper Lee, author of _To Kill a Mockingbird_, who accompanied Capote to Kansas as he researched the Clutter family’s slaying and the lives of their killers (fact). The childhood friends have been estranged for years (fact), Lee long embittered by rumors that Capote really wrote the book that brought her fame - a pivotal bit of fiction in this terrifically intense meshing of imagination and truth. Powers folds his fiction seamlessly into facts; the result is a riveting, offbeat what-if novel. His heartfelt depiction of a Capote in tragic decline - but with flashes of crafty self-awareness - is haunting; his portrayal of Lee as a lesbian _manque_ - though she’s still alive, and as reclusive as ever - is heartrending. –Richard LaBonte
Capote Reviewed in Bookmarks/Q Syndicate
