'Feud' season 2 concludes with Truman Capote's tragic early demise. Here's everything you need to know about the author's death and his unfinished book.

• "Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans" concludes with a focus on Truman Capote's final years.
• The writer died at age 59 in 1984 with his much-hyped book, "Answered Prayers," unpublished.

Across eight episodes, the second season of Ryan Murphy's "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans," has dramatized how acclaimed American author Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) changed New York society and the trajectory of his career with the publication of a scandalous short story that satirized those whom he affectionately dubbed "The Swans."

The story, titled "La Côte Basque 1965" — named after a Manhattan restaurant where Capote and his jet-setting, glamorous female acquaintances once regularly dined — was a thinly veiled fictionalization of their lives that exposed their scandals and secrets.

It was published in an issue of Esquire in 1975, and as audiences have come to learn from the series, it had devastating consequences.

Ann Woodward, pseudonymized but identifiable in the story, died by suicide before the issue hit newsstands, with some believing that Capote's words had pushed her over the edge.

Beyond that, the fallout of the story's publication caused irrevocable rifts between Capote and those he cared for deeply.

According to Laurence Leamer's "Capote's Women" — which showrunner Jon Robin Baitz adapted the series from — the "In Cold Blood" author's excommunication from high society caused him to sink deeper into a dependence on alcohol and drugs in the following decade.

He died in 1984, a month shy of his 60th birthday.

Capote died far from his beloved world of New York society

As "Feud" shows, Joanne Carson (played by Molly Ringwald), the ex-wife of "The Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson, remained on good terms with Capote until his death.

That's despite the fact that "La Côte Basque 1965" featured a character seemingly based on her.

In the story, her suspected counterpart is Jane Baxter, the wife of a "midnight-TV clown" who received a phone call from her philandering husband while he was in bed with his mistress.

It's possible that Carson forgave Capote because, as she told The Los Angeles Times in 2006, "Truman stood by me like a rock" after her divorce in 1972.

Per the same outlet, Capote kept two rooms at Carson's home on Sunset Boulevard, where he spent his time writing and swimming.

It was also where he died on August 25, 1984.

According to PBS, Capote's official death certificate attributed his death to "liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication."

Capote's dependency on drugs was well known. The "Breakfast at Tiffany's" author spent time at rehabilitation clinics in the late 1970s. In 1978, he also openly spoke about his substance abuse during an on-air interview with television personality Stanley Siegal.

Capote, who appeared intoxicated during the conversation, was asked by Siegel, "What's going to happen unless you lick this problem of drugs and alcohol?"

Capote responded: "The obvious answer is that eventually, I mean, I'll kill myself — without meaning to."

The unanswered questions around 'Answered Prayers'

According to reports, in his final weeks Capote was still trying to complete his much-hyped but never-published novel "Answered Prayers."

In his own words, the book was to be his "magnum opus." That's what he wrote in a letter to the Random House editor in the summer of 1958 when he first began planning it, according to Vanity Fair.

But Capote was waylaid by another project. A year later, he began work on "In Cold Blood," which ended up consuming six years of his life.

Eventually published in 1965, the widely praised "non-fiction novel" focused on the massacre of a Kansas family by two drifters, who were ultimately given the death sentence.

Following "In Cold Blood," Capote was due to deliver "Answered Prayers" for publication in 1968, but that deadline was not kept.

After focusing his efforts on his famous Black and White Ball, which he threw in 1966, he renegotiated his contract and promised the book would be complete by 1973. More deadlines were proposed in 1974, 1977, and finally in 1981.

While "Feud" suggests that Capote did, in fact, finish the manuscript and then, in a moment of career self-sabotage, set fire to the only copy, there is no concrete evidence that this happened.

Esquire published two more chapters of "Answered Prayers" in 1976, and together with "La Côte Basque 1965," they formed "Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel," which was published posthumously in 1987.

According to Vanity Fair, Capote recorded the outline for the book, comprising seven chapters, in his journals.

A supposedly missing chapter was published in Vanity Fair in 2012 after being found among Capote's work stored in the New York Public Library.

As for the other three chapters, they might once have existed.

Carson reportedly heard Capote read these aloud, according to George Plimpton's biography of the writer.

Carson also contended that the day before Capote's death he handed her a key that appeared to be for a safe deposit box or locker and stated the complete manuscript "will be found when they want to be found."

According to Plimpton, a search for what the key unlocked was carried out after Capote's death, but nothing was found.

In his editor's note for "Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel," Random House editor Joseph M. Fox posited the theory that the complete manuscript did exist but was "deliberately destroyed" by Capote in the early 1980s.

The finale of "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans" airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FX.