El canto del cisne

They told him everything. He told everything to the others. At countless lunches in Manhattan, in which the martinis could not be missed, they shared his deepest secrets and his greatest fears. Yachts sailing through the Mediterranean, private jets bound for Jamaica, paradisiacal beaches of the Yucatan, and isolated and exclusive bays were the settings where they gossiped about sex, power, money, love and fame, without imagining that he would betray them. In the fall of 1975, after two decades of intimate friendship, Truman Capote detonated a literary grenade, forever breaking with the elite circle into which he had managed to infiltrate with enormous efforts. Why did he do it, knowing what he could lose? Was he to punish them for his arrogance, money, and celebrity? Or did he just refuse to believe that they would ever stop loving him? Whatever the reason, one thing remains indisputable: nine years after achieving an overwhelming success with In Cold Blood, Capote committed professional and social suicide with his most lethal weapon: words.