Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story

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.

From Publishers Weekly

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. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher

"I thought I knew the story of Truman Capote and Harper Lee. I was wrong. Kim Powers brilliantly brings their strange relationship alive in a way a standard-issue biography never could. Weaving together fact, speculation and fantasy, he creates a sort of emotional biography that will haunt you long after the last page...just as the ghosts of the slain Clutters must have haunted them."--Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize winner for The Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love and Mr. Ives' Christmas

About the Author

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.

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