...
Show More
In Cold Blood is one of my all-time favourite books, and this most recent reading must be about my sixth or seventh in the last 20 years. This time, however, I "read" the book by listening to the Random House unabridged audiobook edition, narrated by Scott Brick.
Truman Capote's writing is exquisite. He evokes mid-20th century rural America with a subtle beauty, despite the rather grim subject matter. Brick's narration only serves to highlight the subtle lyricism within Capote's prose.
On the night of Saturday 14-Sunday 15 November 1959, recent parolees Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith broke into the Holcomb, Kansas farmhouse of the Clutter family, with the expectation of robbing a large sum in cash from prosperous landowner Herb Clutter's safe. In fact, no such safe existed, and Hickock and Smith's robbery yielded only $40-$50 in cash and sundry personal items. Wishing to leave no witnesses, they murdered all four of the members of the Clutter family who were in the house that night - farmer Herb Clutter, his invalid wife Bonnie, their daughter Nancy, aged 16, and son Kenyon, aged 15.
A day later, novelist Truman Capote read a short account of the murders in the New York Times, and was inspired to travel to Kansas and follow the story. The result was his masterpiece In Cold Blood, a work he described as a "non-fiction novel". Unlike many true-crime titles, which tend to simply recount facts, this work follows a clear narrative arc, as the story unfolds from the days prior to the murders to the ultimate dispensation of justice six years later, told from the perspectives of the victims, their friends and neighbours, the perpetrators and the various agents of the KBI and justice system who captured and tried Smith and Hickock.
In Cold Blood is masterful in its balance and division of pathos between the undeserving victims and one of the killers, Perry Smith, within whom Capote glimpsed an untapped intelligence and sensitivity. In addition to the account of the Clutter murders and their aftermath, In Cold Blood also contains a persuasive criminological argument as to the inadequacies of the M'Naghten rules in assessing criminal culpability. There was substantial evidence, which was not admissable at trial, that Hickock suffered from a frontal-lobe brain injury and Smith from a serious personality disorder when they committed the crimes. While not absolving them of criminal liability, modern laws would almost certainly have allowed both defendants to have presented compelling evidence of diminished responsibility.
Truman Capote's time in Kansas researching for In Cold Blood with the aid of his good friend Nell Harper Lee have been dramatised in recent years, in the films "Capote" and "Infamous". However, Capote hasn't included himself as a character in his own book, despite the relationships he built with investigators, Hickock and, to a greater extent, Perry Smith - however astute readers will occasionally detect his shadow in the text as "a journalist" or "a friend".
The book has been controversial since its publication, especially amongst the surviving members of the Clutter family and the residents of Holcomb and Garden City, Kansas, as Capote unashamedly invented or conflated certain characters and events. For example, the poignant final scene of the book, in which KBI Special Agent Dewey meets and converses with Nancy Clutter's closest friend - and one of the girls who stumbled onto the scene of the murders that Sunday morning - Susan Kidwell, at the Clutters' graveside, was entirely Capote's invention, and yet it finishes the novel so beautifully... He also clearly embellished the language and expression used by Smith in his many soulful soliliquies. It raises a difficult question - where does the line fall between journalistic reporting of "the facts", which are after all only ever a perspective, and a fictionalised re-telling of a story based on a real series of events?
In Cold Blood is deservedly a modern American classic, and arguably the best writing Truman Capote ever produced. It remains an enthralling, evocative and thought-provoking read, over 60 years since the events that inspired it. I can't recommend it highly enough, but I do recognise that the subject matter won't be every reader's cup of tea.
**Re-read 2024, starting on the 65th anniversary of the Clutter Family Murders, 14 November 1959. RIP
Truman Capote's writing is exquisite. He evokes mid-20th century rural America with a subtle beauty, despite the rather grim subject matter. Brick's narration only serves to highlight the subtle lyricism within Capote's prose.
On the night of Saturday 14-Sunday 15 November 1959, recent parolees Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith broke into the Holcomb, Kansas farmhouse of the Clutter family, with the expectation of robbing a large sum in cash from prosperous landowner Herb Clutter's safe. In fact, no such safe existed, and Hickock and Smith's robbery yielded only $40-$50 in cash and sundry personal items. Wishing to leave no witnesses, they murdered all four of the members of the Clutter family who were in the house that night - farmer Herb Clutter, his invalid wife Bonnie, their daughter Nancy, aged 16, and son Kenyon, aged 15.
A day later, novelist Truman Capote read a short account of the murders in the New York Times, and was inspired to travel to Kansas and follow the story. The result was his masterpiece In Cold Blood, a work he described as a "non-fiction novel". Unlike many true-crime titles, which tend to simply recount facts, this work follows a clear narrative arc, as the story unfolds from the days prior to the murders to the ultimate dispensation of justice six years later, told from the perspectives of the victims, their friends and neighbours, the perpetrators and the various agents of the KBI and justice system who captured and tried Smith and Hickock.
In Cold Blood is masterful in its balance and division of pathos between the undeserving victims and one of the killers, Perry Smith, within whom Capote glimpsed an untapped intelligence and sensitivity. In addition to the account of the Clutter murders and their aftermath, In Cold Blood also contains a persuasive criminological argument as to the inadequacies of the M'Naghten rules in assessing criminal culpability. There was substantial evidence, which was not admissable at trial, that Hickock suffered from a frontal-lobe brain injury and Smith from a serious personality disorder when they committed the crimes. While not absolving them of criminal liability, modern laws would almost certainly have allowed both defendants to have presented compelling evidence of diminished responsibility.
Truman Capote's time in Kansas researching for In Cold Blood with the aid of his good friend Nell Harper Lee have been dramatised in recent years, in the films "Capote" and "Infamous". However, Capote hasn't included himself as a character in his own book, despite the relationships he built with investigators, Hickock and, to a greater extent, Perry Smith - however astute readers will occasionally detect his shadow in the text as "a journalist" or "a friend".
The book has been controversial since its publication, especially amongst the surviving members of the Clutter family and the residents of Holcomb and Garden City, Kansas, as Capote unashamedly invented or conflated certain characters and events. For example, the poignant final scene of the book, in which KBI Special Agent Dewey meets and converses with Nancy Clutter's closest friend - and one of the girls who stumbled onto the scene of the murders that Sunday morning - Susan Kidwell, at the Clutters' graveside, was entirely Capote's invention, and yet it finishes the novel so beautifully... He also clearly embellished the language and expression used by Smith in his many soulful soliliquies. It raises a difficult question - where does the line fall between journalistic reporting of "the facts", which are after all only ever a perspective, and a fictionalised re-telling of a story based on a real series of events?
In Cold Blood is deservedly a modern American classic, and arguably the best writing Truman Capote ever produced. It remains an enthralling, evocative and thought-provoking read, over 60 years since the events that inspired it. I can't recommend it highly enough, but I do recognise that the subject matter won't be every reader's cup of tea.
**Re-read 2024, starting on the 65th anniversary of the Clutter Family Murders, 14 November 1959. RIP
