In Cold Blood

From beginning to end, I found this book to be one of the most compelling stories I've ever read. Truman Capote reconstructs this true life story in a way only a master storyteller can. He weaves the plot together in sequential order, allowing the reader to experience the crime and its aftermath just as the Kansas community did. Further, his character development is utterly flawless. I found myself haunted by the book long after I closed its cover. This account demonstrates Capote's immense talent as a writer, and it is a must read for those wishing to become familiar with Capote and those who enjoy true crime accounts or engrossing non-fiction.

Wanted my own copy of this book that passed around the neighborhood and my teenaged friends in paperback form in the 1960s. UNFORTUNATELY, the botched print job with its lines slanting below the horizontal and its v-shaped interior margins make me nauseated. It's not even a decent pinchbeck. I'd rather have our old creased, rumpled, greasy, coming loose paperback.

After viewing "Capote", the biographic film of Truman Capote's coverage of the horrendous slaughter of a Kansas family, we wanted to review the book and film of the murder. Even after all these years, the book still holds up as the hallmark for True Crime Novels. Capote certainly succeeded in capturing an audience for this type of novel.

Strange to think how, in this post-Manson, post-9/11 world, Capote's account of murder in rural Kansas can still have such emotional resonance and power.

Where to begin with praise for this work. The writing is sublime. Capote's style is economical yet profoundly evocative. He manages to convey so much of the people, the places, the events and the emotions without an excess of prose.

Having learned some of the back story thanks to biographies and recent films, I am amazed at Capote's light touch - how he allowed the characters and events to bring out the story. True, an author always leads the reader's eyes to particular events and impressions. But Capote's deft compositional choices deepen the narrative and bring forth greater complexity and emotional facets. In some instances, he seems to share only portions of what he knows or suspects leaving the rest to the reader's intelligence and imagination. Given today's seemingly insatiable desire to be shown every lurid outrageous detail, I doubt that a contemporary "true crime" author would have written this story with the same level of restraint.

Of course, the most fascinating, and the most controversial, aspect of In Cold Blood is the characterization of the murderers: Perry Smith and Richard Hickock . Were they brutal killers? Without question. Were they complex human beings as well? Yes. And that is the most disturbing aspect of this book for many readers - being shown the faces of evil and feeling empathy as well as horror.

I've read criticisms that take Capote to task for being sympathetic towards the murderers or for having an anti-capital punishment bias. There may be some truth in that, but I believe that readers are given ample opportunity to make up their own minds. Smith and Hickock's human sides are often brought forth, but they are even more frightening and monstrous for that. With the executions, Capote notes some of the troubling and ambiguous aspects that are inevitably part of the process when the state puts an individual to death.

Of course, hanging over the tragedy of the story is the tragedy of it's writing. In the opening chapter, Capote notes "four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives". He couldn't have known that he would also become a victim as his obsession with the project and more specifically with Perry Smith would precipitate an early end to his literary career and a downward spiral into self destruction.

i feel like the people who gave it one star totally misunderstood what the book was supposed to do. its kind of hard to explain what capote's intention was with the book- as it is with a lot of his writings and that is what makes his storytelling so addictive to me- the details that go unnoticed by everyone else matter or make a difference to him. i picked this book up one day while i was sitting bored at my mom's kitchen table looking through the sunday ads at around noon when i looked over at her book case and there this book was. i ended up staying at the table reading the book until the sun went down! page after page!! i don't know where other 1 star reviewers got that he "humanized" the murderers- whatever that means..criminals- even barbaric ones are still human- and one person actually said the characters weren't interesting enough. i feel like they missed it completely- nancy embodied simplicity. there was no complexity to her. complexity of characters does not always equal a good book. she was a small town girl- with an honest hard working family- this book made me feel like i knew the clutter family personally-i felt like i had heard mr clutter talk before- and at the end of the book- i had several tears in my eyes- and im not an emotional bookreader- i actually said a prayer for the family-what they went through was brutal and capote painted the scenes for me with words in a way, i feel, no other author could... read the book.