July 21st, 2007
Review – In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote
It started with a few sentences in the back of The New York Times about a seemingly senseless murder in Kansas. Truman Capote read this brief article and decided to invent a completely new genre of writing, the non-fiction novel. This book is the result of Capote’s research with Harper Lee and moved the murders of the Clutter family from the back of The NY Times to the front of the bestseller lists.
The book starts by introducing us to Herb Clutter and his family. Capote builds a description of a decent, kind, generous, respected, and hardworking family. Although Capote built a reputation as a flamboyant character, he shows enormous respect for the Clutters. Inter-weaved with his description of the Clutters is his description of the two men, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who are about to destroy this family. The suspense builds as the killers get closer and closer. Capote then skips ahead to the discovery of the bodies and we are left knowing what happened but not how or why.
The next section of the book inter-weaves the movements of the killers with the story of the investigators trying to discover their identity. Slowly we learn more and more about the nature and background of these two sociopaths. Meanwhile, the investigation struggles forward until a lucky break leads to the capture. At this point, we finally learn what happened the night of the killings in the words of the killers themselves. The final section details the trial and ultimate punishment of Hickock and Smith.
The book is brilliantly written. Although there have been questions about the complete accuracy of the story (Capote never took notes during interviews and the book has no footnotes) it is still a compelling and frightening book. The combination of creative writing with journalism created a new genre of writing and makes every other “true crime” book read like a high school project. Capote pulls his readers into the story creating empathy for the victims (the dead as well as the living) while letting us see into the minds of the killers as well as Hickock and Smith were ever able to see into themselves. This is a book that is a classic, a literary masterpiece even if it isn’t an example of perfect accuracy. It is a must read.
Tags: book review, Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, Clutter Family
