Book review of "In Cold Blood"

In Cold Blood is an intriguing, bizarre example of how life is truly stranger than fiction. Truman Capote's nonfiction account of four murders in Holcomb, Kansas tells the story of a father, mother, brother and sister were sinisterly executed in their home, two in their own beds.

Capote reconstructs the story as it would be told in a novel. The characters are introduced through their favorite activities and interactions with family and close friends. The reader begins to feel empathetic from the beginning. The children are near-perfect examples of innocent youth, both involved and joyful. This is cast upon the (basically) universal knowledge that they are soon to be slaughtered in their own home. This method accentuates both the innocence of the family and the ruthlessness of the killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Capote also switches back and forth between scenes at the Clutter home and scenes of "Dick" and "Perry", as they are referred to in the book, going about the business of preparing their break-in. This creates suspense as the reader is always pulled away to another scene of less excitement just as the previous scene was reaching a climax. The story builds like that, with the narrative almost reaching climax, then moving to another scene in the story. The chapters are short, making the book flow faster at first. Capote also alters the length of the chapters, with the shorter ones leading up to a monumental parts of the story. This creates an almost physical interaction between the story and the reader in that it feels that the reader is reading faster as the chapters reach their climax.

It is interesting that the story fits so well into the fiction narrative sequence. This required extensive research on Capote's part, exemplified by the details in the story. Perry corrects people's grammar throughout the story. This is perhaps most notable when he corrects the grammar of the news reporter who wrote a story about the murders. While reading about the horrible events he himself helped carry out, he is more concerned with incorrect grammar in the story. It is these types of detail that bring the story to life and elevate it to something more than just a nonfiction account of crime.

Despite his sense of empathy for the victims in the build-up to the murders and arrests, Capote seems to side with Perry Smith in the end. He expounds on research about insanity and its relationship to criminality as a sort of defense for Perry. Hickock is not given the same treatment, as after their confession, Hickock showed no remorse for his actions or an indication that he was criminally insane.

The book comes to a close much slower than it opens with Capote sort of "soap-boxing" for the final chapters. This attempt to almost justify the crime, Perry's involvement at least, is less subtle than his attempt to inspire innocence about the victims giving the book an ambiguous overall feeling.