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Holiday 2014 / 2015 Tempus-Magazine.com 48 a large stuffed rattlesnake on the center coffee table, coiled in the act of striking, its great fangs and open mouth aimed toward anyone coming through the door. I was momentarily taken aback, but the Chi- nese butler intervened by taking drink orders. Truman showed me to a chair and sat himself next to Hilary, engaging her in low, familiar conversation. (When I think about it, the way he curled up on the sofa, he did sort of remind one of a lapdog.) Te drinks came and Truman pursued his conversation with Hilary which continued unabated until lunch was served by the butler. I tried not to listen, and kept one eye on the snake, because it seemed to be a personal, private kind of talk; but occasionally I would catch the names of people such as "Slim" or "Gloria" or "Babe," sometimes accompanied by laughter. Te table conversation was unmemorable, but at least I was involved in it, if I remember correctly. After lunch, however, Truman returned to his sofa and picked up wherever he had left off talking to Hilary. Tis went on for another hour until it became time to go. When the elevator door opened, I told Hilary that I was going downtown to an art show opening but would be glad to drop her off in the taxi. She wouldn't hear of it, and as we waited for our cabs, I couldn't resist asking her what all the conversation with Truman was about. She looked at me and smiled as she got into her cab. "Babe Paley," she said, "is my stepmother." Truman's ruse to worm his way back into the Paley family's good graces did not work. Babe Paley had been ill with cancer and died later that year, having never spoken to Truman again. I shed my role as beard and resumed my writing, while Truman sank deeper into the depths of his degradation, abusing alcohol, drugs, and, occasionally, people. Te last time I saw him was in Bridgehampton in the summer of 1980 at the "new" Bobby Van's, across the street from the "old" Bobby's. I sat with him for awhile as he drank three vodkas and grapefruit juice—before lunch. He died in 1984 of complications from his behavior. HE NEVER FINISHED ANSWERED PRAYERS , although there were rumors that he had, and had hidden it away, or left it in a bus station locker, or burned it. Te parts of it that were published in Esquire were bad enough, for him and for everyone concerned. His publisher bound them in a short book entitled Answered Prayers: Te Unfnished Novel. Tey should have sold it in a plain brown wrapper. Schultz the psychobiographer does not provide us with a clear explanation of why Truman wrote the book, but he posits several theories. One is that it was an act of self-destruction harking back to an unhappy childhood flled with rejection. As a weird sort of corollary, he suggests that Truman may have actually used the book as a defense against rejection in that, since he knew its publication would alienate the Swans, it was actually him doing the rejecting—a sort of you-can't-fre-me-I-quit scenario. Ten there is the notion that Truman really didn't understand the ramifcations of publishing Answered Prayers, that he somehow believed the Swans would enjoy the publicity. I rather subscribe to this last the- ory, which sounds pretty stupid until you recall how much he was drinking and drugging during the pe- riod when he wrote it, and how the dangerous emo- tional highs and idiot celebrity he was riding after In Cold Blood can cause a man to lose his perspective. In the end, however, I'm not sure we need to know all, or even any, of this, except as a cautionary tale. I remain a subscriber to the Intentional Fallacy school of literary thought, which holds that people ought not to be prying into how or why a writer wrote something, or what demons possessed him, or what he "meant"—that the work itself is the one and only statement of any importance. By that standard, what little we have of Answered Prayers not only seems to have failed, but failed Fran- kenstein-like, bringing down its creator with it. Tiny Terror Why Truman Capote (Almost) Wrote Answered Prayers by William Todd Schultz Oxford University Press HE NEVER FINISHED ANSWERED PRAYERS , ALTHOUGH THERE WERE RUMORS THAT HE HAD, AND HAD HIDDEN IT AWAY, OR LEFT IT IN A BUS STATION LOCKER, OR BURNED IT. H