It was time again for a new reading challenge with my cousin Taggy, after being defeated a couple of months back.
This time we chose ‘In Cold Blood’, a book that she’d read before and liked while I was in two minds about as I’m not a fan of American literature.
However, this book changed my perspective and made Capote my second favourite American writer after F Scott Fitzgerald — as the narrative was eloquent and brilliantly articulated like nothing else.
Alas, I lost to Taggy again but this time with a difference of a day — something that I can accept gracefully at my age.
‘In Cold Blood’ tells the story of a shocking murder that occurred in 1958 in a small farming community in Kansas. Herb Clutter, his wife Bonnie and their two teenage children were executed in their house by ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, who weren’t from the area and had to drive more than 600 km to accomplish what Hickock planned and described as the ‘perfect score’.
Hickock was tipped off by an ex-cellmate who was hired by Herb Clutter as a farm hand. He falsely claimed that Mr Clutter kept a large amount of cash in his safe while in fact he was known to use cheques only.
It took the police six weeks to locate the two murderers after a tip from the ex-cell mate. Both convicts were executed six years later after pleading temporary insanity that was never proven by medical examination.
Capote got interested in the case after reading about it in The New York Times. He travelled with his childhood friend Harper Lee (author of ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’) to investigate and interview the locals in Kansas. He also interviewed Hickock and Smith after they were convicted.
Capote’s research produced 8,000 pages and took him six years to write and publish as a four-part serial in the New Yorker. A year later in 1966, it was published as a book and became an instant success. It’s considered the second best-selling true-crime book in history after Vincent Bugliosi’s ‘Helter Skelter’ (1974) that describes the Charles Mason’s murders.
However, Capote was disappointed for not gaining the Pulitzer Prize for his work. But how factual was Capote when presenting his narrative? According to many, seldomly. ‘In Cold Blood’ is considered by many a masterpiece and work of art that was fictionised in many areas.
When interviewing characters from the book, many admitted that there were scenes that never happened and misrepresentations related to the murder investigation or the characters’ attributes.
Nevertheless, ‘In Cold Blood’ was adapted many times to the screen. The murder investigation was presented in a movie by the same title in 1967 and as a two-part mini-series in 1996. Furthermore, Capote’s investigation of the murder was also captured in the critically acclaimed movie ‘Capote’ (2005) starring Philip Seymore Hoffman who won the Oscar for Best Actor the following year.
Trueman Capote (1924-1984) was a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. He’s also known for his novella ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1958) that became a famous classic starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. An interesting fact is that the character Dill in Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ was based on Capote.
Lee’s father was an attorney and they both attended trials with him. Capote died of liver disease due to drug abuse and his ashes were stolen twice, before being scattered in Crooked Pond in 1994.
A museum found in Alabama in 1995 commemorates Capote’s childhood spent there and includes letters and photos. ‘In Cold Blood’ is a gripping, most beautifully written non-fiction novel.
The writer is the author of 'The World According to Bahja'
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