A Powerhouse Ensemble Saves Feud: Capote vs. the Swans’ Scattershot Recreation of a Socialite Scandal

Author Truman Capote famously embraced the advice of fellow American literary icon Mark Twain: “Don’t ever let the truth get in the way of a good story.” This motto could also be said to serve as the operating principle behind FX’s Feud anthology, a high-end Ryan Murphy series that essentially aims to dramatize famous catfights throughout history while exploring what it is about these conflicts that still fascinate us today. But while its second installment, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, hits many of the right notes when it comes to recreating a specific moment of turmoil in the lives of New York City’s elite, its disjoined narrative makes it difficult to give its story of social exile anything that feels like real or lasting weight. 

Capote vs. the Swans presupposes its viewers have some level of familiarity with both the author’s life and the last gasps of 1970s New York high society. The mind behind such American classics as In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Capote was as well known for his open homosexuality, distinctive high-pitched voice, singular (read: effeminate) mannerisms, and elaborate fabrications, as he was for his books. He had public falling outs with authors ranging from Harper Lee to Gore Vidal. Still, the second volume of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series focuses primarily on the story behind Capote’s final unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, a fictional tell-all ostensibly based on the lives of a group of influential New York City women he befriended. Nicknamed “the Swans,” the falling out that ensued between Capote and these women after the publication of a chapter excerpt that exposed many of their secrets ended their friendships and ultimately set the author on a vicious downward spiral that concluded with his death. 

Based on the book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer, Feud’s second installment is less catty than you might expect from its premise. Instead, the eight-episode series (all of which were available for review) is more of a tragedy, a lament for wasted genius and lost love that focuses more on the emotional pain of losing such meaningful relationships than an exploration of the vitriolic social chaos that followed. British actor Tom Hollander is a revelation as Capote, fully disappearing into the character in a way that goes beyond mimicry or impersonation. (His take on the author’s voice is, if anything, a toned-down version of reality.) Hollander’s Capote strikes a delicate balance between loathsome and pitiable, effortlessly elevating the awkward humanity that lives alongside the petty vindictiveness at his core. Running the gamut from the playful to the profound, Feud’s greatest achievement is the effortless way it captures the dynamic appeal of a once-great man in decline, and none of that works without Hollander and his genuinely singular performance at its center.

Told across multiple timelines, the series bounces back and forth between the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, introducing us to the women known as Capote’s Swans. A clique-ish squad of wealthy, influential high society types, they include Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts), wife of CBS founder Bill Paley (Treat Williams); Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), a muse to both Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali; and fashion icon Nancy “Slim” Keith (Diane Lane). Capote’s friendship with these women allows him intimate access to their inner lives and most scandalous secrets, and the series is at its best when it explores the unique relationships the author and these women all had with one another, which seem weirdly symbiotic and painfully genuine by turns. 

Murphy, no stranger to highlighting the challenges faced by women of a certain age in a society that requires they grasp at power where they can find it—and casting frequently sidelined or overlooked actresses to do so—is particularly insightful when it comes to teasing out the ways that middle-aged women and gay men share a unique understanding of performance and loneliness that make their relationships so striking and necessary. This is most clearly reflected in Capote’s bond with Babe Paley, whom he clearly loves the best but also ostensibly harms most directly with the release of his Answered Prayers excerpt in Esquire’s November 1975 issue. (The chapter is clearly about the Paleys, specifically Bill’s infidelity.) But Capote also carries lingering emotional trauma from the death of his mother, whom he semi-regularly hallucinates in the form of a perfectly on-point Jessica Lange.

Although the premise of Feud’s second season is the fallout from the release of the chapter from his unfinished novel, the show undercuts its own narrative by the tangled and nonlinear way it tells its story. Though some episodes are relatively straightforward—the documentary-style black-and-white installment that depicts the lead-up to Capote’s iconic Black & White ball is a particular highlight—most jump between timelines to the point where it may take viewers who are unfamiliar with the specifics of the author’s decline a few moments to catch on to where we are in the story.  Within the same episode, we’re shown Capote and his Swans at upscale West Side French restaurant La Cote Basque, boozily lunching their way through a round of salacious gossip about rumored murderess Ann Woodward (Demi Moore), before watching a scene set several years later, in which Babe, now battling a cancer diagnosis, Slim, and C.Z. discuss the group’s decision to cut their former BFF from their lives, while a third timeline might depict Capote’s increasingly elaborate descent into substance abuse, complete with bouts of public drunkenness and physical violence at the hands of lover John O’Shea (Russell Tovey). 

While such scenes are certainly compelling to watch unfold, there’s little context or connective tissue to hold them all together. The closest thing the series has to a through-line is Capote’s relationship with Babe, who is, not incidentally, also the only one of his Swans who is really given a clear and affecting arc of her own. Watts only seems to grow more luminous as Babe herself sickens, and her character is granted an emotional depth and poignancy her fellow Swans lack. Her feelings about everything from her lifelong pursuit of perfection to the necessity of forgiveness are rich and complicated, and the fact that she and Capote never spoke again after the Esquire incident is the true quiet tragedy simmering underneath all the excessive booze and shimmering camp. 

Though Feud’s second installment doesn’t reach the dramatic heights of first season, Bette vs. Joan, there’s still something worthwhile about a series that finds emotional value in these stories of larger-than-life figures in bygone eras of glamour. As an actor’s showcase that’s more interested in vibes and character dynamics than plot, there’s something rich and throwback-y about this entire franchise, something that’s worth wading through its weaker moments to embrace. The Swans’ world isn’t perfect, but it’s fascinating to watch it drift by. 

Feud: Capote vs. the Swans premieres January 31st on FX and streaming on Hulu. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB.

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