
The Swans of Fifth Avenue
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Cassandra Campbell
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Paul Boehmer
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By:
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Melanie Benjamin
About this listen
New York Times best seller
The author of The Aviator's Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York's "Swans" of the 1950s - and the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.
People’s Book of the Week • USA Today’s number-one “New and Noteworthy” Book • Entertainment Weekly’s Must List • LibraryReads Top Ten Pick
Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends - the alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman - a woman desperately longing for true love and connection.
Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive, golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan's elite along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe's powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls "True Heart", Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller - even when the stories aren't his to tell.
Truman's fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he'll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle listeners as it opens the door onto one of America's most sumptuous eras.
Praise for The Swans of Fifth Avenue
“Exceptional storytelling...teeming with scandal, gossip and excitement.” (Harper’s Bazaar)
“This moving fictionalization brings the whole cast of characters back to vivid life. Gossipy and fun, it’s also a nuanced look at the beauty and cruelty of a rarefied, bygone world.” (People)
“The era and the sordid details come back to life in this jewel of a novel.” (O: The Oprah Magazine)
©2015 Melanie Benjamin (P)2015 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"The strange and fascinating relationship between Truman Capote and his 'swans' is wonderfully reimagined in this engrossing novel. It's a credit to Benjamin that we end up caring so much for these women of power, grace, and beauty - and for Capote, too." (Sara Gruen, New York Times best-selling author of Water for Elephants)
"Benjamin convincingly portrays a large cast of colorful historical figures while crafting a compelling, gossipy narrative with rich emotional depth." (Library Journal)
“Shamelessly gossipy...a catty, juicy read that’s like a three-martini lunch.”(USA Today)
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Such Good Friends
- A Novel of Truman Capote & Lee Radziwil
- By: Stephen Greco
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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On a Thursday morning in May 1961, a well-mannered twenty-one-year-old named Marlene enters the Fifth Avenue apartment of Lee Radziwill to interview for the position of housekeeper and cook. The stylish wife of London-based Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, Princess Lee is intelligent and creative, with ambitions beyond simply jet-setting. But to the public, she is always First Lady Jackie Kennedy's little sister. As Marlene becomes a trusted presence in the Radziwill household, she observes the dazzling array of famous figures who flit in and out of Lee’s intimate circle
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Too Much Servant, Not Enough Truman and Lee
- By Gail Meyer on 03-09-24
By: Stephen Greco
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Deliberate Cruelty
- Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century
- By: Roseanne Montillo
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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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 had risen from charismatic showgirl to popular socialite. Everyone had something to say about the scorching scandal afflicting one of the most rich and famous families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote.
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An interesting true crime story buried in here
- By Quinn on 11-11-22
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The Social Graces
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence - what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor - the Mrs. Astor.
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Disappointing Effort
- By HistoryNerd on 05-11-21
By: Renée Rosen
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Diamonds and Deadlines
- A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age
- By: Betsy Prioleau
- Narrated by: Beth Hicks
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt—is a forgotten figure: Mrs. Frank Leslie. For twenty years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. Diamonds and Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism”.
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Wonderful biography of forgotten gilded age publishing icon
- By Amazon Customer on 03-24-24
By: Betsy Prioleau
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Capote
- A Biography
- By: Gerald Clarke
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1988 - just four years after Capote's death - Clarke paints a vivid behind-the-scenes picture of the author's life, based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the man himself and the people close to him. From the glittering heights of notoriety and parties with the rich and famous to his later struggles with addiction, Capote emerges as a richly multidimensional person - both brilliant and flawed.
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the brightest stars can self destruct
- By jennifer h. on 09-22-21
By: Gerald Clarke
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The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb
- A Novel
- By: Melanie Benjamin
- Narrated by: Kim Mai Guest
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
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In her national bestseller Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin imagined the life of the woman who inspired Alice in Wonderland. Now, in this jubilant new novel, Benjamin shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a nineteenth century icon and inspiration—and whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength.
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Amazing
- By Darrell Rupe on 08-17-11
By: Melanie Benjamin
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Curse of Riches
- By: Claire Prentice
- Narrated by: Claire Prentice, Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
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How did the Wendels, one of New York’s most famous Gilded Age families, disappear from history? The Wendels built a fortune from New York real estate, and rubbed shoulders with the Astors, Vanderbilts, and Stuyvesants. But as the 19th century came to an end, the Wendel family tore itself apart. Following six years of painstaking archival research, Claire Prentice has prised open the door of the Wendels’ Fifth Avenue mansion—dubbed “the house of mystery” by the press—to reveal a fascinating and dysfunctional family imprisoned in a gilded cage.
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Kept Waiting for it to be Interesting
- By Mary on 06-23-23
By: Claire Prentice
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The German Wife
- A Novel
- By: Kelly Rimmer
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson, Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin, 1930—When a wave of change sweeps a radical political party to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes’s academic husband benefits from the ambitions of its newly elected chancellor. Although Sofie and Jürgen do not share the social views growing popular in Hitler’s Germany, Jürgen’s position with its burgeoning rocket program changes their diminishing fortunes for the better. But as Sofie watches helplessly, her beloved Berlin begins to transform, forcing her to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their young family’s security, and what the price for their neutrality will be.
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Awkward Narrative
- By Terri S. on 07-14-22
By: Kelly Rimmer
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Bunny Mellon
- The Life of an American Style Legend
- By: Meryl Gordon
- Narrated by: Vanessa Cortland
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art, and fashion.
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Well written bio.
- By Minda Leah Kahn on 09-01-18
By: Meryl Gordon
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An American Beauty
- By: Shana Abe
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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1867, Richmond, Virginia: Though she wears the same low-cut purple gown that is the uniform of all the girls who work at Worsham's gambling parlor, Arabella stands apart. It's not merely her statuesque beauty and practiced charm. Even at seventeen, Arabella possesses an unyielding grit, and a resolve to escape her background of struggle and poverty. Collis Huntington, railroad baron and self-made multimillionaire, is drawn to Arabella from their first meeting. Collis is married and 30 years her senior, yet they are well-matched in temperament, and flirtation rapidly escalates into an affair.
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Loved everything about it
- By Leigh H. on 07-10-23
By: Shana Abe
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The Children's Blizzard
- A Novel
- By: Melanie Benjamin
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The morning of January 12, 1888, was unusually mild, following a punishing cold spell. It was warm enough for the homesteaders of the Dakota Territory to venture out again and for their children to return to school without their heavy coats - leaving them unprepared when disaster struck. At the hour when most prairie schools were letting out for the day, a terrifying, fast-moving blizzard blew in without warning. Schoolteachers as young as 16 were suddenly faced with life-and-death decisions.
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Homesteaders
- By Phyllis Relyea on 01-22-21
By: Melanie Benjamin
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The Castle on Sunset
- Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont
- By: Shawn Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Since 1929, Hollywood’s brightest stars have flocked to the Chateau Marmont as if it were a second home. An apartment building-turned-hotel, the Chateau has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: where director Nicholas Ray slept with his 16-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose; and Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months. Much of what has happened inside the Chateau’s walls has eluded the public eye - until now.
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Was enjoying it until...
- By leigh on 04-22-20
By: Shawn Levy
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When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
- Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion
- By: Julie Satow
- Narrated by: Karen Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.
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Read like a text book for fashion students.
- By JACKI on 06-24-24
By: Julie Satow
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Husbands & Lovers
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Helen Laser, Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parent dreads—her ten-year-old son, Sam, had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, searching for the donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory’s forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother’s adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend, Monk Adams.
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Twisty
- By Brian lambert on 07-04-24
By: Beatriz Williams
Too long
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Lovely glimpseInto a different world
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Great!
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I look forward to searching this author’s works for the next one. I’ll save it for when I want to drop another 5 pounds!
Tremendously entertaining - a confectionary tale!
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The Swans 🦢 of course.
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Love this book!
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Good book, annoying performance
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went on a road trip to finish audible! Fantastic!
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, great narration using 2 different narrators.What was one of the most memorable moments of The Swans of Fifth Avenue?
Truman's Black & White Party - what a fascinating event. Both my mom and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the online images of the Swans and others at Truman's Black & White Party after we finished the book. And I was interested to see they're making a movie about the party!Have you listened to any of Cassandra Campbell and Paul Boehmer ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no-Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
not at all. Wanted to take a bath in between listenings... Icky...Any additional comments?
My mom doesn't often recommend books she's read, since our tastes don't diverge often. But she thought I might enjoy this one. "It's not my favorite", she explained, "but it was ok, and you might enjoy it." And, it was on my "to read" list based on other friends' recommendations, so when it was available through Audible's BOGO sale, I thought I'd give it a try so I had something to discuss in depth with my mom.I do agree with my mom - it's not my favorite, but you might enjoy it, especially if you love celebrity gossip (from 60 years ago), designer fashion, and insight into the lives of the ridiculously rich and famous. It's all based on real-life relationships and events surrounding Truman Capote and his society "swans", which was really interesting, but I felt like taking a shower after reading many sections of this book; their lives were so icky and very sad in many ways, in my opinion.
I'd give this 3.5 stars. A captivating train-wreck of a novel.
Very good narration on the Audible Audiobook, by two narrators.
(I thought all along that this was probably the same author of one or more other "novels" I've read about famous people... if you are a friend I shared that it might be the same author who wrote about the loves of Frank Lloyd Wright (Loving Frank) or Ernest Hemingway (The Paris Wife) nope, it's in the same genre but different authors. I didn't read anything by Melanie Benjamin before, but have since found out she's a friend of a sorority sister of mine, so will likely read more by her!)
Good Gossip, better than an old People Magazine
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Give it a try
Good for my car ride.
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