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You are here: Home / Writing / The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke

The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke

July 4th, 2017 by Sallie Bingham in Women, Writing 19 Comments

From the series: Doris Duke

Find out more about my book, The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke, now available in paperback.

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The Silver Swan: Searching for Doris Duke

Changing the title of my biography of Doris Duke, especially after more than six years of work, is a big deal. From the beginning, I’ve called it Doris Duke: The Invention of the New Woman, a title with gravitas that also links her to the reinterpretation of women’s roles that was going on in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

But I knew from the beginning that my title might pose problems. Some potential readers might think this was an expansion of a PhD thesis, a scholarly examination of a life that didn’t seem appropriate to an academic approach. Others might resist an openly feminist interpretation. Of course, no title can attract readers who are not interested in biographies of women, especially when written by women.

When my editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux suggested the new title last week, I saw immediately the brilliance of her suggestion. The Silver Swan not only solves the problems that might be caused by my first title. It also holds a hint of the glamor, and the mystery, of Doris Duke’s life, while suggesting, perhaps appropriate, that I might not find the clue to the riddle.

Changing the title of my biography of Doris Duke, especially after more than six years of work, is a big deal.

This is appropriate, too, because since Doris never wrote much herself, perhaps remembering the “Never apologize, never explain” axiom of upper-class life, she will always remain something of an enigma. And that itself has a fascination. No subject worthy of a serious biography can be finally pinned down, although some biographers might bristle at the statement. We are all too complex, too mysterious, too hidden—which is what makes my work so interesting, and so demanding, in fiction as well as biographies, since the narrators in my novels and short stories, no matter their education, are never simple people.

The silver swan as image and icon links to the story of Doris Duke’s life. The Tiffany silver swan shown here was perhaps her favorite possession. It traveled with her on her extensive journeys during the last five years of her life, to Newport, Summerville, Los Angeles and Honolulu, but also to Asia and Europe. It didn’t get shipped to Shangri La, where she died in 1993, and perhaps she missed its silent silvery presence. It is now in Rough Point, her house in Newport, open to the public.

The poem, by Orlando Gibbons, is set to a melancholy madrigal you can listen to on YouTube. Its first line applies to Doris: “The silver swan, who living had no note”—as it does to all of us who, for any number of reasons, fail to set down an account of our lives.

After the mid-1940’s, Doris gave few interviews, wrote few letters, and never kept a journal. She had learned her father’s lesson: never expose yourself. The hostility of the gossip columnists who ruled the press in the 1920’s and 1930’s had taught her never to expect a sympathetic—or even an objective—rendering of her life.

As her mother, Nanaline Holt Duke, warned her, the fortune Doris inherited at age thirteen on the death of her father, James Buchanan Duke, would always arouse jealousy and suspicion. It would have been different if the Dukes had had a son; certainly he would have been the inheritor and as a male millionaire more likely to be accepted.

In one way, Gibbons’ poem is not applicable to Doris. The last line reads, “When death approached, unlocked her silent throat.” Doris’ death was complicated by the motives of the people attending her and their administering of drugs. She probably did not know her end was approaching, and by that time may have lacked the clarity she needed to write about her complicated life.

Others, of course, wrote a great deal about her, in the form of letters, books, and articles, many of which drew readers’ attention with that combination of glamor and suspicion that seems to act on us like catnip. That meant an obsessive concentration on her relationships, especially her sexual relationships. Rumor and innuendo, building on her silence, conveyed little of her character or her achievements while damaging her reputation. “Didn’t she have some kind of weird relationship with a man at the end?” an acquaintance who knows nothing about Doris Duke, but has heard the rumors, asked me last week.

I’ve been asked some version of this question dozens of times in the past six years.

As Gibbons’ poem ends, “More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”

The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke will be published next spring or summer by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, with thirty pages of photographs.

The swan, at last, will sail forth.

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In Women, Writing Doris Duke The Silver Swan Shangri La 17 Favorites of 2017

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Carol M. Johnson says

    July 4th, 2017 at 7:39 am

    Many pick up a book, lured first by a catchy title, which this is. Must admit I found the silver swan photo grabbed my attention…..what a beautiful item. Interesting, of all she possessed, or could, she treasured this item. I’d say you just received a bonus on early sales. I know I certainly am anticipating cracking open this book, whatever you call it.

    Reply
  2. Warren Payne on Facebook says

    July 4th, 2017 at 8:12 am

    What did you think of “Bernard and Doris”?

    Reply
  3. Bonnie Lee Black on Facebook says

    July 4th, 2017 at 8:52 am

    I LOVE the new title, Sallie. And I love this post.

    Reply
  4. Jill Tardiff on Facebook says

    July 4th, 2017 at 11:10 am

    I agree. Excellent title. Looking forward to the cover art too and of course reading the book.

    Reply
  5. Patrick Moore says

    July 4th, 2017 at 6:32 pm

    Anyone remotely familiar with the penetrating & insightful nature of Sallie’s writings will know for certain this book is a winner! “A rose is a rose…”.

    Reply
  6. Ranny Levy on Facebook says

    July 4th, 2017 at 9:31 pm

    Stunning and smart.

    Reply
  7. Karima Diane Alavi on Facebook says

    July 4th, 2017 at 9:43 pm

    The Silver Swan really grabbed my attention. Excellent

    Reply
  8. Linda Reynolds Stern on Facebook says

    July 5th, 2017 at 12:08 am

    Can’t wait!

    Reply
  9. Susan Lindsey on Facebook says

    July 5th, 2017 at 7:28 am

    I’m looking forward to reading it.

    Reply
  10. Lucy Herrman on Facebook says

    July 5th, 2017 at 7:52 am

    Sallie, I think the new title really conveys something about the complex nature of Doris Duke, her life and times. Bravo! Look forward to publication. xxx

    Reply
  11. Nadine Stafford on Facebook says

    July 5th, 2017 at 6:16 pm

    Splendid! Thank you for including the music in your post.

    Reply
  12. Deanna Heleringer on Facebook says

    July 6th, 2017 at 7:58 pm

    Any wait When?

    Reply
    • Sallie Bingham on Facebook says

      July 7th, 2017 at 9:51 am

      Deanna Heleringer – it will be published in Spring or Summer next year, I don’t have a specific date as of yet. – Sallie

      Reply
  13. Deanna Heleringer on Facebook says

    July 6th, 2017 at 8:00 pm

    Wish to co-write a book with u! U r a phenominal writer. Check my idea out when in Lou next.

    Reply
  14. Julie Schweitzer says

    July 7th, 2017 at 9:51 am

    I love the new title. It does add a air of mystery and the swan is a fabulous work of art.

    Reply
  15. Diane Arnold on Facebook says

    July 7th, 2017 at 10:36 am

    Karen, how do you know Sallie Bingham?

    Reply
  16. Donna D. Vitucci on Facebook says

    July 8th, 2017 at 9:03 pm

    the longer you “live” with a piece the more it reveals its secrets to you. wonderful surprises, yes!

    Reply
  17. Linda Brantley on Facebook says

    July 10th, 2017 at 3:57 am

    Looking forward to a good read.

    Reply
  18. Evie Frost on Facebook says

    July 10th, 2017 at 4:15 pm

    So elegant

    Reply

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