Breathtaking! | In Cold Blood

A True Classic | In Cold Blood | Truman Capote

books:


	• In Cold Blood Truman Capote Random House, 2002 - 343 pages average customer review:based on 466 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

A spectacular true crime novel

This book is spectacular. When a friend loaned it to me, I made a commitment not to watch Capote or do online research to determine accuracy and context, so I approached the book with a blissful ignorance. Capote does a masterful job in this groundbreaking (I believe) work, skillfully weaving together quotes and facts from a variety of sources while remaining mostly outside of the action (there are a couple of moments in the last twenty pages in which Capote mentions that he is physically interviewing the two prisoners).

This is, at a basic level, a true crime novel. Two men murder a family of four and disappear almost without a trace. Capote details the subsequent investigations, court proceedings, and aftermath, and his writing is solid and mostly objective throughout. In the early pages, when Capote pieces together scenes of daily life in the small Kansas town before the murders, he drifts into unchecked poetry or unbecoming condescension, but after the bodies are discovered, Capote's writing takes on a much more professional tone.

For a reader in 2010, this is also a surprising history book about small-town Kansas in 1959. Women play inescapably minor roles, and discussions about the death penalty take for granted that all local Christians would be opposed to capital punishment. In fact, the defense attorneys basically assume that all of the jurors are Christians and use that as their basis for pleas for mercy, while the prosecutor stuns the courtroom by pulling out a Bible and using other passages to justify his stance. Lawyers will also be interested in the severe restrictions imposed on any attempt at an insanity defense, and I expect that psychologists and psychiatrists will be amused at some of Capote's observations on the exciting advancements in forensic psychology.

This is a terrific book, both as a history and as a gripping and satisfying narrative. It examines violence without being needlessly graphic, and Capote ties everything into the larger web of the local farm community to give everything the appropriate context. I highly recommend In Cold Blood.

for more information click here

Breathtaking!

If you read the first paragraph of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" it may seem at first to just be a descriptive opening for the book until you read it again. Those opening lines can almost be scanned as poetry because Capote has breathed his life, his unique talent into them and as you read on, you'll see all the words of this true crime story transcend ordinary writing. It is the difference between a great writer and a mediocre one, that special life-breath, that rare life- force that is the hallmark of only a few. Writing sublimely is a gift that cannot be acquired, it is incorporated in the genes. It's there, from the moment of birth. And Truman Capote had it.

for more information click here

A True Classic

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.

for more information click here

A tour de force

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

for more information click here

Great Book

I purchased this book In Cold Book by Truman Capote. This was by far the best I have in my short life and it is most the best book Capote has written yet. I take public transportation when I need to get around and everytime I had that book on me on the bus or the max(portlands train)people would approach me and comment on how great the book is and how much they enjoyed reading it. I was not aware that this was capotes last book because this book had taken so much out of him and really messed with mind. I enjoyed the book and reccomend to anyone that likes to read. Non Fiction murder books are the best if you ask me.
Ryan G.
Portland,OR

for more information click here

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.

In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.

for more information click here