LGBT Book, Film & Video Blog

Kim Powers didn’t publish his first book until a year ago but he quickly received accolades for the memoir, “The History of Swimmin,” from sources that ranged from Diane Sawyer to the New York Times. Last month he was named one of the Out 100.

The gay author’s second book joins the number of Truman Capote works that surfaced over the past few years, which have included two films from 2005 and a new book of essays that was published this month.

“I started this book long before the two Capote movies came out,” Powers, 48, says. “I almost threw it away. I thought, ‘You know, this is done.’ I thought I had wandered into this miraculous story no one knew about.”

But Powers didn’t throw it away, realizing that “Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story” doesn’t bang the same tired drum. In it, Powers relates his fictionalized rendering of the relationship between gay writer Truman Capote and “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee — a relationship he has been “ravenously reading” about since his childhood.

Capote and Lee grew up together in Alabama and worked together in Kansas while Capote explored the real-life Clutter murders that would become the subject of his most prominent book, “In Cold Blood.” After its publication, however, their relationship took a nosedive, a phenomenon Powers set about exploring in “Capote in Kansas.” See Gay author Kim Powers explores Truman Capote and Harper Lee in a ...
Washington Blade, DC