In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of In Cold Blood
Book Review: Capote at his best
Summary: 5 Stars
To call "In Cold Blood" a "true-crime" story is to diminish Truman Capote's enormous talent as a writer. Capote wanted to create a new form of writing which he termed the "non-fiction novel": a work of historical or contemporary fact writting in the form of a novel. To an extent, he succeeded. Rather than a dry recitation of the story of a multiple murder, "In Cold Blood" sweeps us up in the narrative much as a good work of fiction does. Except the events in this book are all too real.Capote tells us the story of the Clutter family murders in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959 from all angles: the Clutters themselves, the lowlife killers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, and the detectives of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who brought them to justice. We meet the Clutters first: Herb Clutter, a pillar of the community and his sensitive wife Bonnie, suffering from bouts of depression; and their two children, the popular, outgoing Nancy and the introverted Kenyon. Then there are Smith and Hickock, two small-town, small-time criminals who hit the big time in one horrendous night when they murder the entire Clutter family. And there is the KBI team that followed each slender lead to bring them to justice.
Capote's narrative of the trial which lead to the conviction and execution of Hickock and Smith is as fascinating as his telling of the events which lead to their capture. We can attempt to understand what drove Smith to kill, growing up in a chaotic family; Hickock is more of an enigma. Capote presents the senior Hickocks as two caring and conscientious parents whose son rejected the principles they tried to instill in him. Can good parents raise a bad kid? Certainly the Hickocks did. Smith at least had a conscience, something Hickock never bothered about. Did they deserve to die for their crime? Capote seems to have been leaning against the death penalty in general. He emphasizes that the judge chose the strictest possible interpretation of the mental incapacity statues which might have applied to Perry Smith. The conclusion of the trial was almost foregone; the detectives had carefully built an airtight case. Hickock and Smith end up on the gallows.
The book's ending is a wistful scene between the leading KBI investigator and Nancy's best friend, Susan, now a young woman entering college; just such a young woman, Capote says, that Nancy might have been had she lived to grow up. In that final scene, we see, as Capote meant us to see, the waste of six lives -- the Clutters, and the killers' own.
Book Review: Capote brings the 60s alive
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first Capote book and I wasn't disappointed. He has a style best called a page turner. Without confusion he lets the reader progress forward as real events unfold, adds history of an event, and then brings you back in real time. Some writers try this montage effect and only create confusion. Capote weaves the two together and allows the reader to process the sequence of events. Very clever, very readable and a very satisfying read. Would recommend this to any first time Capote reader and you don't have to be an intellectual to enjoy it.Book Review: Capote's Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
While reading this book one must keep in mind that Truman Capote had two very distinct objects in mind as he worked on this project. First, he wanted to write a Nonfiction Novel and in that area he has succeeded marvelously. Many critics have in fact proclaimed this to be Capote's best work. The author's other intent was to make a statement against the death penalty, an object in which he is less successful.
Capote could not have picked a better case to write a novel about but he could hardly have found two condemned men who would illicit less sympathy. My own faith inclines me to oppose the death penalty but I would be hard pressed to stick to my convictions in this case. The crimes perpetrated by these two were of the worst kind and no matter their backgrounds I could muster little sympathy for either of them. Fortunately, Capote spends relatively little time overtly pleading his political case and the novel is not harmed much in this effort.
The novel itself is nothing short of a masterpiece and will keep the reader on the edge of their seat for almost it's entire length. Capote begins what is probably the first True Crime Novel by introducing the reader to both the Clutter family (the intended victims) and Perry Smith and Dick Hickock (the killers) along with the small Kansas town where the crime would take place. The reader follows the Clutter clan as they live their normal lives in the days before their murder and also rides along as Smith and Hickock plan their crime. From there, one rides the roller coaster through the crime, it's discovery, the getaway, the investigation, and the capture, trial, and execution of the perpetrators. Capote weaves his story in such a masterful manner that there will be times when the reader gets completely caught up in the story just as if he/she were there. While reading this book you will become very aware of every little noise outside your house so it may be better to read it during daylight hours.
I would advise anyone who likes Crime Novels or just good novels to put this book near the top of their to read list. The story is disturbing and a little graphic in places but this is the work of a master wordsmith and he has done his job well. This book deserves to be placed much higher than it is in the pantheon of great works of literature.
Book Review: Crime, punishment, and more
Summary: 5 Stars
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was published in 1966, and is based on events that happened almost fifty years ago. The events were real. This is not a work of fiction. The Clutters, an appropriately surnamed Kansas family, have their own complications within their rambling homestead. What family doesn't? Clutter the father is a farmer. Who isn't in these parts? Life is not so productive of late. Whose is? The two younger children, a daughter and a son, still live in. The others have left, happily.
And then, in November 1959, the four Clutters are found gagged, apart from the mother, all with their throats cut and their brains blown out by shotgun fire. The community is in turmoil. No-one can explain why anyone might have wanted to kill a whole family in Holcomb, a small, poor, rural community in the mid-West Bible belt.
Hickock (Hicock) and Smith are two lads on the move. Their families might be dysfunctional. On the other hand they might not. Their socialisation might have been lacking. On the other hand it might not. For whatever reason, individually and collectively they prey on others, prey in a way that renders them culpable, detectable and ultimately punishable. They know thieving is wrong. So, one of them says, we've stolen lives, so it must be serious. It was the two of them that pulled the trigger, that blew brains out, that slit throats, that did not quite commit rape. There are limits. And all for forty dollars and a transistor radio.
I give nothing of this book away when I reveal that the two lads did commit the murders - exactly how no-one ever admitted - and that, after years of litigious wrangling, both were hanged. The strength of In Cold Blood is not what happens, but how it happens.
Truman Capote offers us a vast book in just four sustained chapters, each of which is sub-divided as the narrative shifts between aspects of the different protagonists' lives. Throughout, the style is much more complex than mere journalism, but the clarity with which it communicates is at times breathtaking. We hear from those directly involved, both victims and perpetrators, their families, the police, the judiciary, the neighbours, the lawyers, the passers-by, the acquaintances, the cellmates. The detail is forensic.
It is essential that the reader is constantly reminded that this is not fiction. Truman Capote offers dialogue where a journalist would report, offers interpretation where an historian would defer, offer opinion where an observer might decline. And so In Cold Blood becomes and absorbing, multi-faceted, mid-twentieth century reworking of Crime And Punishment. The crucial difference that the intervening years have generated is that where the latter concentrated on the individual circumstances and motives of the perpetrator, In Cold Blood explores the social and the contextual alongside the psychological.
And this is where the book becomes deeply disturbing, because it seems to suggest that the individuality that contemporary society seems to demand of us might itself promote a degree of self-centredness, of selfishness, perhaps, that might give rise to nothing less than contempt for others. In the forty years since the publication of In Cold Blood, it could be argued that such pressures might have increased. Frightening, indeed.
Book Review: Depressing
Summary: 2 Stars
Though this book is well written, I just didn't have the stomach for it. If you love to look at the morbid side of life, however, this is your book. It forces you to look at ugly brutality, and even to empathize with nearly every character in the story including the killers. Truman Capote can write so well that you nearly feel you are them. But who wants to do that? Anyway, the book gave me nightmares, and I'm glad to be done with it, and now I will retreat into my nice happy place. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, etc, I admit it I'm a wuss.