American Crime Story Book Club: Versace Edition

[Aethera]

A place to discuss Season 2 books! Edited to be Versace, since they changed it up on us!

[JakeyJokes]

I just finished "Vulgar Favors: The Assassination of Gianni Versace" by Maureen Orth, the Vanity Fair writer who was writing about Cunanan at the time and is the source material for S2. It is quite a feat of investigative journalism. There's a LOT there. The book takes place in various cities and Orth is very good at describing the decadence of San Diego and Miami and the reservedness of Minneapolis and Chicago.

I don't want to make it sound like Versace is barely in it, but the Miami section isn't until page 349 of a 500+ page book, so I'm sure the series will be more expansive about his life.

[anyanka323]

Another book that the showrunners could have drawn upon was Deborah Ball's House of Versace.  It was written with the cooperation of both Santo and Donatella Versace, as well as Antonio d'Amico.  Ball dismisses Orth's theory that Gianni was HIV positive.  Her access to the Versace family is useful in that she describes the conflicts between the three siblings.  Santo and Gianni fought over Gianni's out of control spending and his habit of using the Versace corporate accounts as his personal piggy bank, including buying homes, furnishings, and art for those homes.  Donatella and Gianni had conflicts over the creative direction of the company, including model casting and the clothing aesthetic.