Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century
When Ann Woodward shot her husband, banking heir Billy Woodward, in the middle of the night in 1955, her life changed forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few believed the woman who has risen from charismatic showgirl to popular showgirl. Everyone had something to say about the scorching scandal afflicting one of the richest and most famous families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote.
Acclaimed for his bestselling nonfiction book In Cold Blood, Capote was looking for new material and followed the scandal from beginning to end. Like Ann, he had ascended from nobody to toast of the town, but he always felt like an outside, even among the most exclusive coterie of high society women who adored him. He decided the story of Ann's turbulent marriage could be the basis for his masterpiece - a novel about the dysfunction and sordid secrets revealed to him by his high society "swans" - never thinking that it would eventually lead to Ann's suicide and his own scandalous downfall.