In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
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Book Reviews of In Cold Blood
Book Review: A Fatal Autumn Evening on the Plains of Kansas
Summary: 5 Stars
Just yesterday, I was reading an article entitled "Rap Sheet" by Jill Lepore in the latest issue of The New Yorker. In the article, which had gone into the mysteries of Americans propensity to lead the World in per capita murders, I read about the infamous Petit family slayings of Cheshire Connecticut. What startled me most was that these murders of an affluent Doctor's family by two ex-cons mimicked a long ago infamous family murder of the Clutter family on the Kansas plains nearly 50 years before.
Alas, I remember, I read the book! "In Cold Blood" took Truman Capote 5 years to complete. Being an accomplished fictional writer provided no solace for Capote in which he struggled to get the facts and background of the ordeal and to gain the trust of the people of Holcomb Kansas. When Capote was researching and digging into the facts, not only with the town's people but with the convicted murderers themselves, the Author was unsure if he would ever have a book to show for his efforts.
In essence his research and discovery were saved in two places that being in his note taking and what he kept in his brain. In fact Perry Smith, the actual trigger man had asked Capote how the book was progressing. Capote at this time hadn't written a word. Needless to say after giving the Author all he needed to know, this discovery by Smith must have been devastating. In truth all the words spilled forth like a true historical narrative in distinct novel form. The book reads easy in every horrific detail. You can sense the autumn evening and the tension associated with the murders. Everything else flows in a natural and unbelievable transparency of events so common in American murder crimes.
As stated in Lepore's New Yorker article, murders such as these seem to take on an American genre all by itself. Almost 50 years later, and the beat goes on. One thing different though, in Capote's rendition of what happened both Mr. Perry and Mr. Hickock were put on trial, convicted and hanged in just over 5 and one half years. The two ex-cons charged with the murders of the Petit family have yet to go to trial for murders committed over 2 and one half years ago. Our justice system seems to have changed in that time.
Capote's efforts are to be commended and reflect a true American classic narrative of an American murder. This book reflects Capote's genius, and no I don't have enough stars!!!
Book Review: The first "novelized" true crime non-fiction!
Summary: 5 Stars
Dateline 1959, Holcomb, Kansas: Herb Clutter, a wealthy, well-respected God-fearing Methodist farmer, his wife and two children are brutally murdered in what modern police parlance would term a home invasion. The Clutters, dispatched without any apparent motive, made particularly poignant victims. Mr Clutter, a hard-working, successful farmer, allowed no drinking on his farm. Generous to a fault and yet prudent with his money to an extreme, he paid for everything by cheque. His attractive daughter, Nancy, a lovely young woman well-behaved, obedient and chaste to an extent that would baffle the modern teenage generation, loved to bake and regularly attended 4-H meetings. The son, Kenyon, also a good homebody who respected his father's word as law, loved to putter in their home workshop. The only cloud on their family horizon was Mrs Bonnie Clutter prone to debilitating fits of anxiety and depression.
IN COLD BLOOD, arguably the ground-breaking first book in the true crime genre that might be called "novelized" non-fiction, tells the story of the family, their murder, the murderers, the investigation that led to their capture, the trial and ultimate execution by hanging. Truman Capote's extensive investigation allowed him to reach into the very minds of the murderers and to re-write a story that allows readers to witness how the events leading up to the murder and the actual murder might have taken place in real time BUT from the point of view of the killers themselves, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Edward Smith.
That the killers were twisted sociopaths is apparent throughout the book. Witness the banal, bleakly noir but paradoxical and utterly shocking statement that Smith made regarding Herb Clutter's murder to Capote during one of their interviews, "I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat."
IN COLD BLOOD is an extraordinary compelling work, seminal and pioneering in its nature, that plumbs the depths of a motiveless multiple murder and brings the reaction of the community and a shocked nation to life. Small wonder that there is controversy to this day about the effect that writing this novel might have had on Truman Capote himself. There is little doubt that the effort left him a very changed man.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
Book Review: As Good As I Remember
Summary: 5 Stars
Having just seen the movie "Capote" I decided to reread IN COLD BLOOD and found it every bit as good as I remembered. It certainly reads like a novel without being one, or you can call it a nonfiction novel, a new hybrid form that Mr. Capote said he invented. As practically everybdy in the world now knows, the author researched and wrote a stunning account of the murders of the Clutter family in Kansas in 1959, conducting countless interviews with everyone involved and attending the executions of the murderers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock. There is a myriad of details about both the four members of the Clutter family and Smith and Hickock as well as the law enforcement officials involved in solving the crime. Mr. Capote manages to pull together a lot of otherwise extraneous material and by his genius makes it relevant-- all the information about the other men on death row a/k/a "The Corner," for example. The author is famous for his clear, transparent prose very much in evidence here. That is not to say that he is not a master of metaphor as well. Hickock's father is described by Capote as having "faded, defeated eyes" And his mother "throughout the trial. . . had sat quietly beside her husband, her hands worrying a rumpled handkerchief." And Capote's description of spring on the day of the Clutter auction: "Actually, it was a beautiful day. Spring. Though mud abounded underfoot, the sun, so long shrouded by snow and cloud, seemed an object freshly made, and the trees-- Mr. Clutter's orchard of pear and apple trees, the elms shading the lane-- were lightly veiled in a haze of virginal green." A multitude of such sentences abounds throughout this book.
In his introduction to the Modern Library edition of IN COLD BLOOD Bob Colacello credits Capote with influencing Tom Wolf, Gay Talese, Bruce Chatwin, Ryszard Kapuscinski, James Ellroy and John Berendt. Such a statement may indeed by true; on the other hand no writer following Capote has done this sort of writing better. I can imagine his comments about, say, Bob Woodward's quoting in his books the thoughts of people verbatim whom he had never interviewed or Berendt's projecting himself into a scene in MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL and witnessing a shooting when in reality he was not present. To paraphrase what Capote supposedly said about Norman Mailer, these writers will never beat him at his own game.
Book Review: Capote's Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
While reading this book one must keep in mind that Truman Capote had two very distinct objects in mind as he worked on this project. First, he wanted to write a Nonfiction Novel and in that area he has succeeded marvelously. Many critics have in fact proclaimed this to be Capote's best work. The author's other intent was to make a statement against the death penalty, an object in which he is less successful.
Capote could not have picked a better case to write a novel about but he could hardly have found two condemned men who would illicit less sympathy. My own faith inclines me to oppose the death penalty but I would be hard pressed to stick to my convictions in this case. The crimes perpetrated by these two were of the worst kind and no matter their backgrounds I could muster little sympathy for either of them. Fortunately, Capote spends relatively little time overtly pleading his political case and the novel is not harmed much in this effort.
The novel itself is nothing short of a masterpiece and will keep the reader on the edge of their seat for almost it's entire length. Capote begins what is probably the first True Crime Novel by introducing the reader to both the Clutter family (the intended victims) and Perry Smith and Dick Hickock (the killers) along with the small Kansas town where the crime would take place. The reader follows the Clutter clan as they live their normal lives in the days before their murder and also rides along as Smith and Hickock plan their crime. From there, one rides the roller coaster through the crime, it's discovery, the getaway, the investigation, and the capture, trial, and execution of the perpetrators. Capote weaves his story in such a masterful manner that there will be times when the reader gets completely caught up in the story just as if he/she were there. While reading this book you will become very aware of every little noise outside your house so it may be better to read it during daylight hours.
I would advise anyone who likes Crime Novels or just good novels to put this book near the top of their to read list. The story is disturbing and a little graphic in places but this is the work of a master wordsmith and he has done his job well. This book deserves to be placed much higher than it is in the pantheon of great works of literature.
Book Review: A tour de force
Summary: 5 Stars
Truman Capote's gripping account of the savage murder of four members of the farming Clutter family on November 15, 1959, by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith was rightly hailed as a masterpiece of American literature. It was a departure for Capote who was an established and internationally successful writer when he began what was termed a 'non-fiction novel', or documentary essay, which he so vividly developed and recounted of the events leading up to the eventual tragedy, first by introducing us to the Clutter family from Holcomb on the wheat plains of western Kansas, with some detail and intimacy, then a glimpse of Perry Smith waiting for his friend, Dick, whom he had met in gaol. He is described as a short, powerful, dark haired 32 year old, with Indian ancestry on his mother's side. It becomes apparent that some nefarious plan has been hatched between the two men. They drive away when Dick arrives, with Perry's beloved guitar on the back seat of the 1949 black Chevrolet sedan. Both are misfits from broken homes, and Perry suffers from headaches and continually overdoses himself on anelgesics. He also has a violent temper.
Capote became intimately involved in the drama after the arrest and trial of Smith and Hickock, their sentence of death, and the long drawn out appeal process. He visited Holcomb, became friendly with the participnants, and in particular the local sheriff. He also became intimately involved with Dick and Perry, particularly the latter, for whom he developed an emotional attachment, and was traumatically affected by their eventual execution.
In Cold Blood was a complete departure for the writer of such sophisticated pieces as 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', and 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' - and for someone who loved the company of beautiful society women, and was a compulsive gossip. The structure and masterly development of 'In Cold Blood' is a fascinating and extraordinary achievement by a superb writer, and remains a modern day classic.The Learning Process: Some Creative Impressions