A scene from “Ice Water in Their Veins”

Lillie Mae Faulk: So, son, you got fat, didn't you? God, and you were so ... You were so, so beautiful, too beautiful. A normal boy would have outgrown the beauty and hardened, but you? You got soft. And the booze, Christ.

Truman Capote: It's all in the blood, mother. It's in the blood. And it ran in the Faulks, didn't it?

Lillie Mae Faulk: You really can let go, dear. You've done the work. You did it. And you did it all for me. So you can let go.

Truman Capote: What did I do for you exactly?

Lillie Mae Faulk: You avenged me, of course.

Truman Capote: Did I? I wasn't aware.

Lillie Mae Faulk: All those people I wanted to be part of, all those people that had no time for me, those women of New York society who would have no part of me, just like your Swans. You knew how I felt. Southern, odd, a little trashy, a spectacle. Just like you did. So you took them out, didn't you? And you did it so brilliantly with such surgical precision. With so much deep hatred.

Truman Capote: So what now, mother?

Lillie Mae Faulk: I think it's time for you to join me, isn't it? Come on. Let me be your mother again. Truman, where I am and where you are going, a mother can be a very important guide. Come on, darling. You're almost there already. Your poor little heart is encased in fat, and your liver is riddled with cirrhosis. In this pocket, you have Halcion. In a little Tiffany pillbox that Babe gave you with all the phenobarbitals and the pretty pastel little Valium. Just jiggling around in there. And the vodka, oh my God! You could go right now, go to that little guest room here that you love so much, just lie down under that piñata, that Day of the Dead piñata. Have your little Day of the Dead celebration.

Truman Capote: No. You may be real, you may be ghost, you may be risen from the grave, mother, but I am not ready. I am not on your schedule. I still have a masterpiece to finish, and they're waiting for it. They're waiting. So I'm not going anywhere with you.