The Difficult Ghost

In 1960, Truman Capote arrived in the small town of Palams on the Costa Brava. He’d hoped a short break from New York’s social scene would help him finish the book he was writing about two young men convicted of a horrific murder. He wound up staying in Europe for three years of agonising self-exile, wrestling with his haunting material, crafting a masterpiece, and waiting for the event that would allow him to finish it – the execution of those two men. Following in Capote’s footsteps in Palams, journalist Leila Guerriero finds almost no trace of those turbulent years. As she sorts through a jumble of competing local accounts and blatant fabrications, she launches a dazzling enquiry into the curious afterlife of writing – and the dark complexities of turning life into literature.