'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote

 

Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the 1959 murder of a Kansas farmer, his wife and children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who, vividly drawn by Capote, are shown to be reprehensible, yet entirely and frighteningly human. 

The book that made Capote's name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative.

The narrative tone is detached and emotionless. This leaves room for ambiguity: the reader cannot tell if the narrator is speaking as a professional journalist, intent on revealing the facts while flirting with sensationalism, or as a psychiatrist, regaling an audience with a case study. The detachment present in the narrative voice also hints that the persona of the narrator has a psychopathic personality: capable of thinking without feeling, able to recognise natural beauty in the Kansas wheat fields while retaining a calculating brain at its heart.

In Cold Blood (1966) is subtitled as 'A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences'. Capote himself described his work as a "non-fiction novel". First printed in four installments in The New Yorker, Capote has imposed fictional style over facts. The quasi-journalistic style of the book suggests Capote was fascinated on doing his own investigation into the apparently motiveless murder of Herbert Clutter and his family in Holcomb, Kansas. Also, the aforementioned detachment present in the narrative style shows that Capote was trying to keep a cool head while describing such events. Not easy given the graphic subject matter and the extraordinary pace of the novel. I found myself whizzing through the book, partly because of its description of how the American Dream - that fantasy of how each individual is free to pursue his/her own personal happiness - is twisted and distorted into the American nightmare. The two murderers, Smith and Hickock, see an opportunity which they believe will lead them to better their lives and take it, with horrifying consequences. Doubtless, Capote's American audience, inhabitants of post-war United States, with their rose-tinted view of how life couldn't possibly get worse after their recent sufferings, were shocked by such an event. The erstwhile prairie-strewn safe haven represented by the Mid-West was no more.

The American Dream is one of the big themes in the novel, alongside traditional ideas about masculinity, femininity, and religion (the setting is Bible-belt Kansas, after all). Contrasting these wholesome beliefs are the ideas about criminality and madness. Why would someone commit a crime? a) because they're inherently evil and mad or b) something happened to them in order for them to become that way. Capote's juxtaposition of such people as the Clutter family, where the parents are fully invested in the lives of their children, despite Mrs. Clutter's mental health issues, with someone like Perry Smith, child of divorce and domestic abuse, reveals the dark underbelly of America. Capote shows great intuition into the human psyche, about what could drive a man to commit murder in a way that is subtle and persuasive. By the end of the novel, the reader knows that justice has been done - the criminals have been caught and punished - yet they are left with the same image the novel begins with: 'the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat'. There is a feeling of coming full circle, back to the mirage of wholesome countryside where nothing can possibly go wrong. This made me feel uneasy, like something bad was likely to happen again, that, despite appearances, the world is not a safe place.

“No one will ever know what In Cold Blood took out of me,” Capote once said. “It scraped me right down to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me.” The success of In Cold Blood blighted Capote's creativity; he never wrote another great story again. Yet, the novel has become a classic example of mid-century Americana. For anyone familiar with the writings of earlier journalistic authors, such as Daniel Defoe or Charles Dickens, or for anyone wanting a break from contemporary crime stories, In Cold Blood is an exhilarating, vertiginous read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.