Deliberate cruelty : Truman Capote, the millionaire's wife, and the murder of the century
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-305).

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, and 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, Truman always felt like an outsider, even among the exclusive coterie of high-society women who adored him. He decided the scandal would be the basis of his masterpiece--a novel about the dysfunction and sordid secrets revealed to him by his elite "swans"--never thinking that it would eventually lead to Ann's suicide and his own scandalous downfall.