Seventh Book: Truman Capote´s ¨In Cold Blood¨

After having watched the acclaimed film Capote, staring Philip Seymour Hoffman, I decided I ought to read the novel on which the film centers. Truman Capote´s ¨In Cold Blood¨made waves when it was first published, and it´s not difficult to see why. Although this is a work of non-fiction, it doesn´t read like it. Instead, it has the gripping feel of a thriller. Set in a rural town in Kansas in 1959, ¨In Cold Blood¨ describes the brutal murder of four members of the Clutter family, and how their killers were ultimately brought to justice.

Americans love stories about crime, and this certainly fills this need in the national psyche. I was transfixed by the scenes in the book describing the actual murders, and the following investigation, capture, interrogation, and trial of the killers. It was also interesting to track the lasting social impact of the murders on this small town. I was a little less interested by the psychological profile of Perry, on which Capote devotes much time. Nevertheless, Capote is a master of pacing; reading this book is like watching an episode of C.S.I.

As a writer of non-fiction, I am also interested in how how the authors glean their information, how they draw their informants into their confidences, particularly when the subjects can be so painful. This to me is the genius of this book: the fact that Capote successfully got the killers themselves, the investigators, the family members, and the townspeople to recreate for him the course of events that must have been very intense for them.

(Next up: Gioconda Belli´s ¨The Country Under My Skin¨)