In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of In Cold Blood
Book Review: A Remarkable Page-Turner Even Though You Already Know the Outcome
Summary: 5 Stars
When a book like IN COLD BLOOD reaches the level of being a classic, there has to be a reason. Consider the following two excerpts:
"The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them."
"Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat." The former excerpt is from Capote's opening paragraph; the latter cointains his closing sentence. Both are extraordinary, especially for their time, in capturing the mood and poetry of a place in the middle of a true-life story of a horrific mass murder.
As is certainly well known, IN COLD BLOOD is Truman Capote's magazine-article-turned full-length-docu-novel about the murders of four members of the Clutter family in their Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse in November 1959. The two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were ultimately caught, tried, sentenced, and executed, factual matters that are still commonly known today thanks to two recent movies about Capote's life and his efforts to write the book. Even at its publication, IN COLD BLOOD was not a detective story in the traditional sense, since everyone already knew the perpetrators and the case's eventual disposition.
In an era when such incidents were reported either factually (newspaper style) or sensationally (crime magazine style), Truman Capote effectively created an entire new genre: journalism as art form. Writing with a level of descriptive detail about places and events that create a strong sense of immediacy in the reader's mind, he begins his story with a re-creation of the Clutter family's last day of life. The effect is profound and eerie, since these pages are read with a foreknowledge of death not shared by the real-life characters on the page. Capote builds his suspense masterfully, alternating between the movements of Hickock and Smith and those of the Clutters (husband and father Herbert, perennially sick wife and mother Bonnie, intelligent, tinkering son Kenyon, and All-American sweetheart daughter and town darling Nancy.
As he brings the two parties closer and closer together, Capote continues to fill in background on their respective lives. By the time his orchestrated characters have reached their mutual, bloody crescendo, the reader is intimately acquainted with them as individuals and their respective life stories. Thus, the author gives us individuals with whom we are intimate as characters in a novel, yet they are real people about whom he is reporting in a senseless, horrifying mass murder story. This is Capote's genius and the source of his book's classic status - factual reporting that reads like a novel, displaying the intimacy with its characters that is normally reserved for the so-called "omniscient author," the one who can hear, share, and express his or her characters' most private thoughts and motivations.
Capote's pacing and remarkable eye for detail never relent as the story moves from crime to investigation, arrest, and trial by jury. He maneuvered himself into a situation where he was privy to every detail of the police investigation; it is equally clear he had extended access to Hickock and Smith throughout their ordeal, up to and including their ultimate disposition. While it was doubtless a level of access no longer available to reporters or writers, Capote took maximum advantage of it in crafting his story. What comes out of it, surprisingly, is a tale of two socially maladjusted young men of above-average intelligence whose trial was of questionable fairness, particularly as regards the mental health of one of them (who was probably more criminally insane than scheming murderer). In one of the book's most telling moments, Capote recounts the reports that the court-appointed psychiatrist would have rendered had the judge (and Kansas state law at the time) allowed them to do so.
IN COLD BLOOD is truly a master work by an effete, East Coast reporter who beat the odds (and prejudices, no doubt) and entwined himself in his story and the lives of its actors to an unheard-of degree. The result was, and is, more than just a gripping account of a horrendous crime. It is a study in criminality: its victims, its effect on their families and community, its perpetrators and their families, even on the law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation. One can hardly imagine a more finely drawn study of a single crime and its all-too-human impact, presented in a form that remains to this day a page-turner in the very best sense of that phrase.
Book Review: A True Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the story of two drifters who murdered a prominent Kansas farmer and his family in 1959.
But this story is about much more. It's famous (many others have written about it), and it started the so-called non-fiction true crime drama.
So what more can I add?
This is one of the books that I have in my permanent collection and that I take out every six months, not for the subject matter necessarily, but to remind me how beautiful the English language can be in the hands of a master.
There are sentences you and I couldn't repeat. For instance: "The cider-tart odor of spoiling apples. Apple trees and pear trees, peach and cherry: Mr. Clutter's orchard, the treasured assembly of fruit trees he had planted." He was later killed by the "boys."
Would you find that in a Grisham book?
About the murderers regretting their crime:
"Mountains. Hawks wheeling in a white sky.
When Perry asked Dick, "Know what I think?....I think there must be something wrong with us."
There isn't a single missed note in this book. And an umabigious take on the death penalty. Do yourself a favor. Read the book.
The book is all of 343 pages. You'll be richer for reading the book. And we're all poorer for losing such a talented author at age 59.
Book Review: A good change of pace
Summary: 4 Stars
The Clutters are a hardworking and well respected family in Holcomb, Kansas. Each is admirable in their own right. However, when they are brutally murdered one night in their own home the town is turned upside down and its many residents are fearful for their safety.
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are recent parolees from the Kansas correctional system and former cellmates. In prison they hatched a plot to rob and kill the Clutter family based on incorrect information about a safe that Dick had received from another prisoner. When they were both released they travel to Holcomb and carry out their murderous plan. Over the course of the novel, we learn about the driving motivation behind the robbery and murders as well as get a glimpse inside the criminal mind.
Truman Capote's groundbreaking novel In Cold Blood is great for fiction and nonfiction lovers alike. He did a masterful job of taking a real life true crime event and turning into a brilliant and entertaining novel. He writes as though he had access to intimate knowledge that only the real characters could possibly have had. This novel provides a unique perspective that entertains as well as relates a true and horrific tale.
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
Book Review: American Justice
Summary: 2 Stars
The problem with this book is that it tells the story Capote wants told, which differs significantly with some important facts. The cable TV series "American Justice" did an excellent documentary focusing on the Clutter murders. Hickock and Smith were far worse characters than depicted in the book, especially the latter. At his execution, Smith still was complaining about his sentence and had to be dragged up the scaffold steps. None of those interviewed who personally were involved in the criminal investigation and trial liked Capote's book.