DON’T MISS FX’s FEUD: CAPOTE VS. THE SWANS—THE ORIGINAL SERIES BASED ON THE BESTSELLING BOOK—NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON HULU! New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his "swans." "There are certain women," Truman Capote wrote, "who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich." Barbara "Babe" Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister)—they were the toast of midcentury New York. Capote befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and shocking way possible. Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1958 and In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer's block. While enjoying all the fruits of his success, he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel...one based on the remarkable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends. For years, Capote attempted to write what he believed would have been his magnum opus, Answered Prayers. But when he eventually published a few chapters in Esquire, the thinly fictionalized lives (and scandals) of his swans were laid bare for all to see, and he was banished from their high-society world forever. Laurence Leamer recreates the lives of these fascinating women, their friendships with Capote and one another, and the doomed quest to write what could have been one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Presents forty activities designed to help children build better social skills, make friends, learn to adapt to changing relationships, cope with rejection and disappointment, and find deep and lasting friendships.

Racial, Ethnic, Gender and Class Representations in Margaret Laurence’s Writings is a study on Canada, Canadian literature and Margaret Laurence’s works in particular, thus addressing various kinds of readership. This book avoids the danger of limiting the approach to solely focusing attention on Canada by presenting a thorough analysis of various literary genres, allowing the book to be of interest to all literature lovers. Furthermore, the book explores the parallelism between life and fiction, emphasising Laurence’s biographic and realist elements and their influence on the writer’s fictional writing, revealing real and imaginary worlds which would appeal to anybody’s literary needs. This major contribution to the already existent criticism of Margaret Laurence’s works lies in the analysis of her work as an entity, balancing both terms of the common binary oppositions: fiction versus non-fiction, Africa versus Canada, white versus Black or Metis. In spite of critical comments which might be raised, Andreea Topor-Constantin comments on how the voice of the marginal makes itself heard throughout the author’s books, underlying Laurence’s emphasis on characterisation and her genuine concern for people. This book covers all aspects of Laurence’s life and fiction: from the African to the writer’s Canadian background, from adults’ to children’s literature, from novels to short stories, from essays to letters, in order to challenge readers’ perceptions of race, ethnicity, gender and class.

Vicky, who runs a bookshop, is a heavyweight. When a customer - a handsome bronzed man of thirty - seems attracted to her she resolves to slim by hook or by crook. Aided by her two friends, hard exercise, diet and a graph, she manages to reduce to a streamlined version of her former self - only to find that it was her rotundity that attracted the handsome book buyer in the first place. When, on his return, he finds himself confronted by a sylph his disappointment is only too apparent. The newly slim Vicky is left alone once more. My Fat Friend premiered at the Globe Theatre in 1972 starring Kenneth Williams and Jennie Linden and has since been performed throughout the UK and the US and in many European countries.

"Laurence Myers was the impresario behind some of the biggest names in British rock and pop in the 1960s and 1970s. In Hunky Dory (Who Knew?), Laurence tells the tale of his extraordinary life and career for the very first time, from humble beginnings to his big break in the music business."--Book jacket