Book Review: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
This year I decided I needed to start reading more non-fiction. Where better to start than what is called the first true crime novel.
In Cold Blood was written very soon after the events which the book covers. So soon after, that you have to wonder how much the rawness, the closeness of it, affected the writing of it. Researching and writing about a crime that was committed 20 years ago, is a much different thing to researching and writing about a crime that happened five years ago.
The majority of our time in the book is spent with the murderers. And there’s never any question that they are the murderers, that’s not the approach taken here. We know that they killed this family, what unfolds is the how and, more chillingly, the why.
We get quite a comprehensive history of both Dick and Perry, the two killers, but at no time does it feel like we’re being told this as an excuse for what they’ve done. It’s just laying out what is, it’s not trying to explain away their actions. Part of the interest that this book generates is in pondering how two people with such different upbringings can reach the same point. It’s the age-old debate of nature versus nurture, and there’s one murderer on each side of the argument.
We are introduced to the family that become the victims of this brutal crime, but every chapter describing them and their lives was overshadowed with what you knew was ahead for them. I don’t know if it’s the way it was written, or my own self-preservation, that meant I never really connected with any of them. They all felt somewhat like caricatures and were never really fleshed out enough to make me understand who they were as individuals.
The final section of the book rushed by, everything from their trial onwards. The majority of time is spent with them after they have committed the crime, but before we know exactly what happened. While we know from the start that they did it, it’s not until they are actually caught that we hear their confessions as they are given to the police.
I can see how this became the template for so many modern crime movies and TV shows. Looking at things from the perspective of the villains, not necessarily taking their side, but telling their story, is almost standard practice now. The juxtaposition of the murderer against victim highlights the sense of impending doom and gives us the sense of closure when what we’ve been seeing coming all along eventually comes to pass.
The author was entirely absent from the telling of the story. Given that so much of it is told through quotes, I found myself wanting to know where the quotes came from and how they were gathered. I wanted the author to jump in and tell me how he came by this information. I don’t know if the quotes were taken from public record documents, interviews in papers and TV or radio, if the author was given special access to confidential police records, or if he conducted his own interviews with all the people involved. There are so many quotes in the text. There are entire sentences that are constructed from just single word quotes. You can make anyone say anything you want that way.
Most of the questions I have after reading this book are not about the killers or the victims, they’re about the author. When I’m reading a book I deliberately stay away from other reviews or information or history about it, until I’ve written my own review, so that I stay as unbiased as possible. I have heard that writing this book was an experience that had a huge impact on Capote’s life, and I can understand why. Getting into the minds of two murderers isn’t an experience that anyone should take lightly.
3 out of 5 stars.
Have you read In Cold Blood? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments below!
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