Feud: Capote vs. The Swans

Last week, Sharon and I finished watching Feud: Capote vs. The Swans on Hulu. I read the book that the series was based on in November of 2022. I really enjoyed the book and was interested in seeing the series.

Feud: Capote vs. The Swans is the second season of the American anthology television series Feud created by Ryan Murphy, Jaffe Cohen, and Michael Zam for FX. It was written by Jon Robin Baitz. The eight-episode season is based on the book Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era written by Laurence Leamer. The cast includes: Naomi Watts as Babe Paley; Diane Lane as Slim Keith; Chloë Sevigny as C. Z. Guest; Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill; Demi Moore as Ann Woodward; Molly Ringwald as Joanne Carson; Treat Williams as Bill Paley, and; Tom Hollander as Truman Capote.

The show takes viewers on a journey through the real-life social and literary drama between Truman Capote and his circle of glamorous New York socialites. Writer Truman Capote ruins his friendships with a socialite group of New York City high society ("the Swans") by writing a thinly veiled fictionalized account of their scandalous and hedonistic lives in his (ultimately unfinished) novel Answered Prayersa. When Esquire publishes the chapter "La Côte Basque 1965", after the restaurant of the same name frequented by the Swans, several vow to ruin his life in revenge.

I don't recommend this series. I felt like the episodes were too repetitious; they highlighted Capote's drinking over and over and over again. While the book explores the lives of both Capote and the Swans, there were very little of this material in the series. It is mostly just the drama of Capote's conflict with the women.