Hannah Hecht's Blog

When I scanned the list of books available for this review, one name stood out among all the others. I had heard it called “the great American novel” and the first real piece of literary journalism, it was written by my favorite author’s best friend and I had heard that many pieces of the book took place in my hometown of Lansing, Kansas. The audio version of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (published in 1966) was a no-brainer, and I clicked the play button on my iPod on a drive back home in happy anticipation.

The book started off in full descriptive mode, painting Holcomb, a small, sleepy town in western Kansas to the very last detail. The town was vivid and full of dynamic characters, a postmistress, a sheriff, the owner of the local restaurant, all speaking in a distinctive western Kansas dialect that I knew well from visiting my grandparents on the other side of the state as a kid. Holcomb was the type of place where each person knew every one of the other 269 people in town, and they never felt the need to lock their doors at night. That is, until the gruesome murder of the Clutter family, father, Herb; mother, Bonnie; daughter Nancy and son, Kenyon.

In Cold Blood carefully examines every single aspect of the case, starting with the victims by scrupulously accounting for their last days on earth and then moving on to the townspeople’s reactions, the detectives on the case, and, most importantly, the murderers themselves, Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith.

One of the things that most amazed me about the book was its ability to keep me reading, even though I knew (and all of Capote’s intended readers knew) exactly what was going to happen next. Throughout the first section, the one highlighting the Clutter family’s last day, Capote reminds the reader over and over again that they are going to die soon. By the time the neighbors find the bodies, the reader already knows who the murderers are, and the back cover already tells us that the murderers will be convicted and executed. (In fact, I can distinctly remember one of my elementary school teachers telling the class about the Clutter murderers being the last two people hanged at the Kansas State Penitentiary, just three blocks from my elementary school.) But yet, Capote’s storytelling and pacing kept me interested in the book from start to finish. At first, I wanted to know exactly how the Clutters died. Then, I wanted to know the motive. Why did Dick and Perry kill them? Why in such a gruesome and terrible way? What was the connection between the murderers and the Clutter family? Then, I wanted to know about the murderers’ lives. Capote sets up a situation where the murderers are characters that you feel sympathy for, which given the depth of their crimes, is no easy feat.

Capote, already a successful author of Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and many short stories, plays, and pieces of nonfiction, became inspired to write In Cold Blood when he read a 300 word article in the New York Times about the Clutter murders. He was captivated by the story and traveled to Holcomb with his best friend Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) to learn more about the story. He ended up taking four years to research, interview, write, and follow the story to its end, the execution of the murderers. To write the story, he had long conversations with everyone involved, without taking notes, as he claimed his memory retention for quotes was “above 90 percent.” Harper Lee helped him by befriending many of the townspeople that he wanted to interview.

Capote started off writing the story just because, having never been to Kansas, he thought he could write it in a fresh perspective. At first, he just toiled around in the city for a long time, interviewing, finding out every possible detail of the case, until the detectives started to make some breaks in the case. Then, he interviewed the detained suspects in their cells at the Finney County Courthouse in Garden City, KS, covered their trial, then followed them to their final home, death row at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing. Over four years, he was able to determine almost every single detail of that fateful day, and then to trace the two murderers around the country during the time that they were on the run after the crime. He even went back into Dick and Perry’s personal histories, talking to their family members and people who had known them in their past lives.

Although the story is written from a journalist’s perspective, the reader can tell that the author ended up being very emotionally involved. Capote evokes a sense of sympathy not only for the victims, but also for the criminals, a feat which requires an unparalleled emotional connection to the story and its characters.

For me, this novel definitely lived up to the hype. Its pacing and characterization kept me engaged for all 384 pages, and it is the type of read that will stick with you long after you finish it. In Cold Blood truly deserves the title of the great American novel, and I highly recommend it.