Rating: 4.75* of five

BkC13) IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote: As good as it gets. Only really good thing he wrote.

The first statement being unassailable, I'll focus on the second.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is fun, and a little bit risqué, but deathless literature? Even a well-made novella? Not so much. Other Voices, Other Rooms? A roman à clef that, because it dealt with hoMOsexuals (plural) in 1948, was much tutted over and hollered about. Reading it in the 21st century, one is struck at just how dreary adolescence as a subject of fiction almost always is, the queer factor being so very much less of an issue than it was back then when mastodons roamed Manhattan and giant krakens swam the seas.

His short stories, A Christmas Memory in particular, are sometimes brilliant. It was his métier. He excelled at it, and In Cold Blood is the anomaly in his career. The fact that he reputedly had a sexual affair with Perry Smith, and the fact that his cousin Harper Lee was deeply involved in his creation of the book, make me wonder if he wasn't simply a front for Harper Lee's second novel publication. He would have been better able to benefit from it, being completely Lee's opposite when it comes to publicity, and his personal emotional stake in the tale and its outcome would doubtless appeal to Lee's apparent help-the-underdog bias. Speculation, and without insider information, I grant you. But I can't help feeling the beauty and the shimmering perfection of In Cold Blood, coupled with the complete absence of any further publications from Capote after this book, are...suggestive.

None of which really matters a lot. In Cold Blood is excellent. Read it with the full expectation of readerly pleasure.

n  n
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In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

This article is about the book by Truman Capote. In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966; it details the 1959 murders of four members of the Herbert Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.

When Capote learned of the quadruple murder, before the killers were captured, he decided to travel to Kansas and write about the crime.

He was accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and together they interviewed local residents and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes. The killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested six weeks after the murders and later executed by the state of Kansas.

Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. When finally published, In Cold Blood was an instant success, and today is the second-biggest-selling true crime book in publishing history, behind Vincent Bugliosi's 1974 book Helter Skelter about the Charles Manson murders.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «به خونسردی»؛ «به خونسردی - شرح واقعی قتل چهار نفر و پی آمدهای آن»؛ «در کمال خونسردی»؛ نویسنده: ترومن کاپوتی؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هفدهم ماه سپتامبر سال 1998میلادی

عنوان: به خونسردی؛ نویسنده: ترومن کاپوت؛ مترجم: باهره راسخ؛ تهران، فرانکلین، 1347، در 345ص، موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: به خونسردی - شرح واقعی قتل چهار نفر و پی آمدهای آن؛ نویسنده: ترومن کاپوتی؛ مترجم: پریوش شهامت؛ تهران، نشر پیکان، 1376، در 467ص؛ شابک 9646229123؛

داستان برگرفته از خبری واقعی، از قتل‌عام یک خانواده، در «کانزاس» است، و همین رویداد به نویسنده فرصت می‌دهد، تا نخستین رمان ناداستان خویش را بنویسند؛ نویسنده زمان بسیاری را صرف گفتگو، با «شاهدان»، «دو قاتل»، و «بررسی گزارش پلیس»، می‌کنند؛ کتابشان در سال1965میلادی، با تیراژی میلیونی برایش نامداری، پیروزی و ثروت به همراه می‌آورد؛ با این کتاب به اوج می‌رسند، و نمی‌توانند هرگزی کتاب دیگری در همین اندازه بنویسند؛ زندگینامه نویسش «جرالد کلارک»، علت را زمان طولانی پژوهش، و خستگی ناشی از کار سنگین ایشان می‌داند؛

تاری بهنگام رسانی 27/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 22/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

In Cold Blood is the new school classics selection in the group catching up on classics for November 2016. Having read Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's recently and enjoying his writing, I could not wait to read this nonfiction thriller in advance of the upcoming group read. Writing in his relaxing southern style, Capote turns a horrid crime into a story to make the how's and whys accessible to the average American. It is in this regard that I rate this thrilling classic five stars.

On November 15, 1959 Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, on a tip from another inmate, brutally murdered four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas. Having heard that the Clutters possessed either a safe or $10,000 cash in their home, Smith and Hickock desired this wealth for themselves so that they could live out their days in a Mexican beach resort. To their surprise and chagrin, the Clutters did not have neither the safe nor the cash, but Hickock had said to leave no witnesses. Crime committed, the pair escaped to a life of continued crimes and violence and believing that authorities would never catch up with them. And in the beginning it appeared that this ill advised lifestyle might actually work.

Due to the relentless work of the Kansas Bureau of Investigations (KBI) lead by Alvin Dewey, Hickock and Smith were eventually brought to justice and ultimately given the death penalty. Capote weaves a tale by giving us the backstory of both felons as well as a picture of Holcomb and nearby Garden City, Kansas as an idyllic place to raise a family. The crime changed everything. Families kept their doors locked and did not allow their children to venture far from home. In the surrounding areas, people viewed their lives as a before and after. Inevitably, the Clutter case lead to less community interaction and a beginning of a breakdown of society.

Yet by providing the backstories of the felons, Capote allows the the readers to emphasize with their place in society. Dick Hickock was on his way to finishing at the top of his class with a possible athletic scholarship and a degree in engineering. His family could not afford a university education even with the scholarship so Hickock went to work. An automobile accident left him partially brain damaged as his parents maintained that he was not the same person since, and this one incident lead to his adult life of crime. Smith, on the other hand, lead a bleak childhood to the point where readers would feel sorry for him. Coming from a fractured family and only a third grade education, Smith suffered from a superiority complex his entire life. His role in the Clutter murders was the consummation of a lifetime of rejection. The felons came from diametrically opposed upbringings and yet I was left feeling remorse for both.

Capote pieced together the crime to the point where I felt that I knew the people of Holcomb as well as the principal players in the crime intimately. This work lead to a new genre that brings together nonfiction and fiction in a way that history feels like a story. Both Capote and his research assistant Harper Lee ended up as award winning authors. Their fictional writing skills allowed for the personalization of this tale and ultimately help change the way many write nonfiction.

Truman Capote is one of 20th America's master storytellers, and In Cold Blood is by many considered his opus. His research was detail oriented and allowed him to bring the story of the Clutter murders to the average American home. After completing this five star work painting the picture of the how's and whys of murder, I look forward to reading more of his charming Southern stories.

“‘This is it, this is it, this has to be it, there’s the school, there’s the garage, now we turn south.’ To Perry [Smith], it seemed as though Dick [Hickock] were mumbling jubilant mumbo-jumbo. They left the highway, sped through a deserted Holcomb, and crossed the Santa Fe tracks. ‘The bank, that must be the bank, now we turn west – see the trees? This is it, this has to be it.’ The headlights disclosed a lane of Chinese elms; bundles of wind-blown thistle scurried across it. Dick doused the headlights, slowed down, and stopped until his eyes were adjusted to the moon-illuminated night. Presently, the car crept forward…”
-tTruman Capote, In Cold Blood

American crime writing stretches all the way back to before the founding of the United States. If you want – I don’t necessarily recommend it – you can read Cotton Mather, and find him recounting the alleged criminal actions committed by his neighbors (some of which involves taking license with farm animals). Since then, there have been countless newspaper articles, magazine stories, and entire books aimed at fulfilling an insatiable appetite for understanding the felonious conduct of others. Despite the overwhelming number of entries in the true crime genre, however, you cannot have a conversation about it without mentioning one notorious book: Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

Billed by its creator as a new literary form, the “nonfiction novel,” this product of the New Journalism was not actually a first of its kind. That does not lessen its impact, or its artistry.

In Cold Blood begins on the windswept plains of Kansas, outside the town of Holcomb (“The land is flat, and the views are extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples…”), and ends in a cemetery underneath the same big sky (“the graves…lie in a far corner of the cemetery – beyond the trees, out in the sun, almost at the wheat field’s bright edge...”). In terms of structure, pacing, dialogue, reveals, and fully-realized scenes, this reads as good as any fiction, and far better than most.

That’s the problem, though.

A lot of it is fiction.

***

The story behind the making of In Cold Blood, which was the subject of two major motion pictures, at times threatens to subsume the underlying subject matter, like a snake eating its own tail. According to legend, Capote, a famed author and bon vivant, saw a small article in The New York Times about the murder of Herbert, Bonnie, Kenyon, and Nancy Clutter, members of a relatively well-off farming family. With his authorial senses tingling – nothing sells like murder in the heartland – Capote set off for Kansas with his buddy Nell Harper Lee. Once there, this odd couple essentially embedded themselves into the community, pumping them for information until the well ran dry. Later, once two suspects – Perry Smith and Richard Hickock – were in custody, Capote insinuated himself into their lives as well.

When all was said and done, it became hard to know whether Capote was simply a fact finder, or an active participant, one whose unseen hand actually shaped the outcome of the case.

***

Even with all its baggage, it is startling how much talent is on display here. This is a book that grips you, and insists that you keep reading. The prose is luminous, the characterizations acute, and the setting marvelously realized. Capote finds his arc, and he builds carefully around that, modulating the tension until his big payoff, before settling on as graceful an ending as you can imagine. There are moments of subdued ghastliness, such as Perry Smith’s confession:

[Alvin] Dewey’s ears ring with it – a ringing that almost deafens him to the whispery rush of Smith’s soft voice. But the voice plunges on, ejecting a fusillade of sounds and images: Hickock hunting the discharged shell; hurrying, hurrying, and Kenyon’s head in a circle of light, the murmur of muffled pleadings, then Hickock again scrambling after a used cartridge; Nancy’s room, Nancy listening to boots on hardwood stairs, the creak of the steps as they climb toward her, Nancy’s eyes, Nancy watching the flashlight’s shine seek the target (“She said, ‘Oh, no! Oh, please. No! No! No! No! Don’t! Oh, please don’t! Please!’ I gave the gun to Dick. I told him I’d done all I could do. He took aim, and she turned her face to the wall”); the dark hall, the assassins hastening toward the final door. Perhaps, having heard all she had, Bonnie welcomed their swift approach.

There are also moments when Capote describes a place – a cheap hotel room in Mexico, or the gallows in Kansas – with such tactility that you can almost reach out and touch it. In Cold Blood lives so strongly in the memory because it indelibly implants these images into your head, as well as any movie.

Towering over everything is Capote’s portrait of Perry Smith. In Cold Blood is not a whodunit. Rather, in large part, it is the character study of a killer. A cripple suffering from chronic pain in both legs – which had been crushed in a motorcycle accident – Smith grew up with an alcoholic mother who died when he was very young. He spent time in several orphanages, where he claimed to have been abused. In Capote’s compassionate hands, this victim-turned-victimizer becomes a tragically tortured figure, one so skillfully etched that his ultimately homicidal acts feel like an inevitability.

Of course, part of the problem with In Cold Blood is this very thing. By lifting up Perry Smith, Capote casts a shadow over everyone else: his partner in crime, Hickock; the law enforcement agents who caught him; and most of all, the victims themselves.

Still, if overemphasizing the killer was In Cold Blood’s only problem, it could be dismissed as a common failing of the true crime genre. After all, many (if not most) of these types of stories focus more on the criminal than the victim. Unfortunately, this is a dramatic imperative, since the criminal is the agent of action, while the victim is the passive recipient.

As noted above, however, this is not the only issue with In Cold Blood.

***


From the moment of its publication, In Cold Blood was trailed by accusations: Capote made up dialogue; Capote invented things; Capote was wrong with his interpretations.

Some of these criticisms are off base, as they involve judgment calls or sour grapes. Obviously, people who came off looking bad cried foul, but that doesn’t mean that Capote was wrong. Other criticisms, though, are right on point. The creation of scenes whole cloth, for instance, particularly rankles. For example, the book’s ending – providing a beautiful counterpoint to the opening – is so perfect that it feels fortuitous. According to one of the men involved, it was too perfect, because it never happened.

Perhaps more troubling is Capote’s absence in this story. Told objectively in the third-person – except for long portions of purportedly verbatim recollections from various participants – Capote does not place himself into events.

On the one hand, this was nice. There is a trend in modern true crime for an author to insert him or herself into the chronicle, making their personal story equal to that being presented. This can work, if done right, such as in Michelle McNamara’s posthumously released I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. But it’s hard to do right. In my opinion, many efforts suffer from this intrusion, which can be annoyingly distracting, or used as filler to supplement otherwise meager facts. In Cold Blood is blessedly free of self-conscious handwringing about the ethics of crime-writing. There are no digressions into areas about which a reader could not care less. For all of Capote's legendary ego, there is no reflective navel-gazing. Above all else, there is the thrilling sense of watching things unfold as a witness.

Yet Capote’s absence can be seen as an act of mendacity. According to some sources, he was pulling strings and moving pieces in order to shape the outcome. The extent of this can be debated. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that In Cold Blood without Capote as a character cannot – for this reason alone – be considered the full story.

In the end, the controversy cannot do much to knock In Cold Blood off its pedestal. While it may not be a great work of investigative journalism, it is undoubtedly a powerful piece of art.

*2.5/5

Try as I might, I could not get invested in this book. I think it was far too overstuffed with information that was irrelevant to the central plot, and it was so dry that every time I tried to read it I would get bored. I have spent half a month trying to push myself through this. Definitely not the story for me, although the mystery itself (when it was actually being told) was fascinating.

در کمال خونسردی روایت یه حادثه هولناک از قتل تمامی اعضای یک خانواده خوب و سرشناس ساکن کانزاسه سال ۱۹۵۹ئه. ترومن کاپوتی چند سال بعد از قتل رو به تحقیق و بررسی روی این پرونده گذرونده و نتیجه‌اش شده این کتاب که بنظرم جنس روایتش بی‌نظیره.
ما اینجا با یه داستان پلیسی کاراگاهی طرفیم که شبیهش رو زیاد تو سریالای این روزای شبکه‌های مختلف دیدیم (تحلیل‌های انتهایی به شدت منو یاد سریال شکارچی ذهن فینچر انداخت) اما نکته اصلی روشیه که کاپوتی این داستان واقعی رو روایت میکنه. از همون ابتدای کتاب ما میدونیم قاتل‌های این ۴ نفر کی‌ان و باهاشون بصورت موازی در کنار داستان اعضای خونواده همراهیم. با این وجود نه تنها از جذابیت و کشش کتاب کم نمیشه بلکه بعد از اینکه قاتلا روایت خودشون رو از نحوه‌ی قتل میگن تمامی پیش‌بینی های خواننده رو هم نقش برآب میکنن. کاپوتی تونسته روایت‌های قاتلین، شاهدای ماجرا و تمامی کسایی که درگیر این پرونده بودن رو به حدی عالی جمع‌بندی کنه که ما با داستانی طرف باشیم که ۱۰۰٪ جزئیاتش واقعیه؛ یه مستندنگاری خلاق و درجه یک!

I didn't know about "In cold blood" until a few months ago when I read some Goodreads reviews about it. I listened to the audiobook. Audiobook narrator Scott Brick was very good, although he chose to read the book using a bit of a preachy tone, which I didn't enjoy too much.

Just incredible how deep into the events and into the characters Capote managed to get, thanks to a massive work of research and to what amounted to years of interviews.

Despite the often flowery prose (personal taste and, I guess, different times), "In cold blood" grips you and sucks you in. It makes you feel like you experienced what they experienced - the victims, but mainly the murderers. Capote moved to this little Kansas town when he heard about the murder of the Clutter family, and he gathered information for his book for the next few years, during which he even got acquainted with the convicted criminals.

As dark and disturbing as any piece of true crime writing, and in the end, thanks to the well-rounded, hyper-detailed representation of the criminals as real human beings, yet another demonstration that capital punishment is a barbarian practice.

"Unashamedly my favourite book of all time. Written originally as a piece for the New York Post by Capote, he later developed it into this novel.

I have very little to say of the plot because YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK YOURSELF. The dawning of a new type of literature - the true crime book - but still not as we know it today. Today's true crime are full of fact after grisly fact, who shot who and countless mass murders or gangland wars. Don't get me wrong I love those books too.

In Cold Blood is different. ONE major crime followed by a myriad of smaller, stupid crimes. The major crime was never really planned to happen and it never should have happened but when dumb criminals are involved in poorly planned c
rimes things can go VERY wrong. But that is the story, no reprisals from rival gangs and no 'over the top, gun blazing' street battles. No bodies found buried in the woods, no booby trapped houses.

Capote was infatuated with this story and he knew from the time he had finished his New York Post article that he had to give it more time to breathe. This book reads like any fictional crime novel only it is based on fact. A truly remarkable piece of work, Capote keeps you turning pages waiting for the big twist, he has you riding along with the story so much so that you almost forget you are reading a true account of a crime. He doesn't sensationalize the events but the way he could write with such descriptive clarity is at least the equal to any fiction you could read."

In Cold Blood is a very detailed account of the November 15, 1959 brutal murders of four members of the Cutter family residing in Holcomb, Kansas. This gripping and informative narrative describes the actual murder, investigation, eventual capture of Hickock and Smith, as well as their trial and executions. A sad true-crime story, but worthwhile historical read.

خواندن پرونده های جنایی یک چیزه و خواندن چنین کتابی کاملاً چیز دیگری. در پرونده فقط با جنایت فرد سر و کار داری ولی اینجا مجبوری خودش رو "ببینی". انسانی که بوده، هست
نه صرفاً حیوانی که یک خانواده چهار نفره رو تقریباً بدون هیچ دلیلی کشته و بعدش راجع بهش جک گفته و خندیده

زندگیش رو می خونی، نامه هاش، دیکشنری شخصیش برای اینکه از لغات سطح بالاتری استفاده کنه، هوش بالا، حسرت درس خوندن و کودکی تلخش

به فکر فرو میری که چقدر فاصله ست بین مردی که برای قربانیش چیزی روی زمین سرد پهن می کنه که اذیت نشه و همون مرد که گلوش رو می بره و با شاتگان کارش رو تموم می کنه
مردی که نمی گذاره شریکش به دختر جوان تجاوز کنه چون این کارو پست می دونه بعد همون دختر رو خودش می کشه

چطور هر دو در یک آدم جا می شن؟ چه موجودات عجیبی

کاپوتی داستان میگه، داستان یک جنایت، جوری که انگار هر لحظه حاضر بوده. میگن انقدر روی این پرونده وسواس فکری داشته که پیگیری می کنه و می نویستش. ولی من می گم بیشتر نسبت به شخصیت عجیب "پری اسمیت " وسواس فکری داشته. می خواسته کشفش کنه
این کتاب رو گوش کردم و چقدر از صداش لذت بردم، از لهجه ایالت های جنوبی آمریکا -جایی که این جنایت اتفاق افتاده- که همه چیز رو حتی واقعی تر کرد

۹۵.۱۱.۱۳

“There’s got to be something wrong with us. To do what we did.”

Bravo. Truman Capote’s magnum opus. This was his last published work; he never finished another novel. Six years of research and writing. Wow. Well it certainly shows within the pages. I found the writing style to be almost cinematic. Speaking of movies, I watched both the 1967 In Cold Blood and the 2005 Capote film adaptations.

“No one will ever know what 'In Cold Blood' took out of me. It scraped me right down to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me.” -Truman Capote

Within 10 minutes of finishing In Cold Blood you'll be on the internet searching for pictures of the killers and victims of this real world multiple-slaying narrated brilliantly by Truman Capote. The photos are there, and like a voyeur, you'll be drawn, captivated, needing to see the mug shots, the murdered family, the courtroom stills, the crime scene, each room that held a body with a head blown open like a busted melon.

Capote breathes such realism into the characters that all you'll need to make the story complete are those black-and-white photos. With an economy of words and language that is clear and straightforward, Capote successfully makes a difficult story very readable, very believable. The difficult part was taking a true story constructed from witness statements, interrogations, and multiple interviews between killers and author, and then salting in between with a dialogue that is perfectly deduced from a close personal knowledge of the killers--their attributes, their movements, their proclivities.

I felt like I was watching the action unfold, not so much reading it. And yet, Capote was able to do this without the cloyed techniques so prevalent in the mass media paperbacks you find at large grocery store chains. There are no outrageous cliffhangers between chapters, no desperate chases, no irrational climax, no unknown player revealed in chapter finis. In fact, he chose to introduce the murderers up front, then coolly alternates chapters between killers and victims, and then, when victims were eliminated, between killers and prosecutors. I liked this approach. It's uncommon. I liked the way it disarmed me, and made it a story of mechanical transaction rather than an emotional racetrack. For this reason the story, for me, was one of 'why' instead of 'how.'

I also liked that Capote applied psychoanalysis to the crime. Surely there must have been some insanity involved. But no, not really! And that was the real surprise. Apart from a tough childhood and some persistant hard knocks, the killers were probably no more deviant than a majority of cases that fall through the juvenille system, even today. The key ingredient to the crime was the bizarre congruency of their personalities--merely deviant when separated--that when mixed together created a lethal combination. Operating together, the killers must have felt the bewilderment one experiences when finding 2 spalls of broken rock in a large pile and suddenly, absurdly, fitting them exactly together.

New word: sartorial