Customer Reviews

In Cold Blood

5 star:		(141)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Our book club recently took on IN COLD BLOOD as part of our "Southern author" series. The book before that was equally as good-MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL, and that was followed by the riveting and jaw-dropping novel of Jackson McCrae, his now famous BARK OF THE DOGWOOD. Of the three (which we all liked) BLOOD was the most spellbinding. And why not? I took a few minutes to read through the other reviews for Truman Capote's: In Cold Blood. It really disappointed me to learn that the people who have taken the time to read this book are focusing on such unimportant aspects. I've read that people gained a better understanding of the legal system, were able to see inside the heads of two very mentally ill people, enjoyed being fascinated about the diversity of our society and the triumphs of law enforcement. Yes, this is all well and good, but would it really hurt so much to dig past the bluntly obvious? Of course it does all of that, but much, much more. Studying criminal psychology, I read many accounts of murders and dreadful crimes. Not once have I ever come across something of this nature retold with such delicacy and beauty as In Cold Blood is built with. Capote has portrayed a terribly gruesome murder in just enough of the right light for the reader to stomach it; to envision it; to judge it, with fairness and reality; to gain appropriate perspective of the shape a mind takes when overcome by illness and, in other instances, confusion in dealing with something a small town has never seen before. As a sidenote, one thing that especially surprised me when reading this book was the mention of the sheetmusic for 'Comin' Through The Rye' resting on the piano during the part when the detective is visiting the murder scene...I was interested to note the connection between In Cold Blood and the murderous reputation associated with The Catcher in the Rye. Anyway, if you haven't read this one yet, don't do it because you have to...because an English teacher is pushing you...do it because you'd like to witness the work of a masterful author who has the skill and ability to portray the events surrounding a gruesome murder with beauty and elegance.

Truman Capote created a new genre of novel with this account of a true crime. He sets up the novel expertly, building a suspense you might not think could exist. He sets it up artfully by writing that a murder has been committed and then tracing the backgrounds and the paths of the killers up to the night of the murder itself, so that the details of the multiple homicide are the climax of the book. Like a Shakespearean drama, there's a "fifth act" of some resolution regarding the fates of the killers and some of the Clutter family friends. This is by far Truman Capote's best book. It's full of hope and sadness, good and evil, and it never fails to scrutinize and explore the spaces between two extremes.

BLOOD was the most spellbinding murder mystery I've come across in a long time, and why not? I've read that people gained a better understanding of the legal system, were able to see inside the heads of two very mentally ill people, enjoyed being fascinated about the diversity of our society and the triumphs of law enforcement. Yes, this is all well and good, but would it really hurt so much to dig past the bluntly obvious? Of course it does all of that, but much, much more. Studying criminal psychology, I read many accounts of murders and dreadful crimes. Not once have I ever come across something of this nature retold with such delicacy and beauty as In Cold Blood is built with. Capote has portrayed a terribly gruesome murder in just enough of the right light for the reader to stomach it; to envision it; to judge it, with fairness and reality; to gain appropriate perspective of the shape a mind takes when overcome by illness and, in other instances, confusion in dealing with something a small town has never seen before. As a sidenote, one thing that especially surprised me when reading this book was the mention of the sheetmusic resting on the piano during the part when the detective is visiting the murder scene...I was interested to note the connection between In Cold Blood and the murderous reputation associated with Giorgio Kostantinos's-The Quest. Anyway, if you haven't read this one yet, don't do it because you have to...because an English teacher is pushing you...do it because you'd like to witness the work of a masterful author who has the skill and ability to portray the events surrounding a gruesome murder with beauty and elegance.

... The book I read was long, drawn out, boring to the point of tears. I literally had to put it down for a couple of weeks at a time, or I'd have never finished it. There was too much detail... way too much detail. If I had read one more instance about a pie being baked the day of the murder I would have screamed.

Capote is more than sympathetic toward Perry thus the book is not written objectively. He comes to the point of almost saying that the Clutter family was responsible for their own deaths. But even HE can't cross that line. Perhaps this would have been a better read had Capote not gotten the hots for Perry Smith. He tried so hard to make Perry look misunderstood, pitiful, and less culpable than Hickcock.

For all the hype ..., I was sadly disappointed in this so-called Classic.

I ordered the book over a month ago and still haven't received it. Don't know what is going on.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long while. You get to enter deeply in the minds and lives of the people concerned by a horrific and gratuitous killing spree that occurred in the house of a respected, ordinary farming family in a usually quiet small village. The author took a journalistic approach to transform this real story (the actual murder of the Clutter family) into a detailed, multi-layered and affecting novel, rigorously documenting the context by acquainting himself with members of the family and community who knew respectively the victims and the two killers, not to mention interviewing at length the killers themselves while they were imprisoned, waiting for capital punishment, as much as the policemen who were called in on the scene of the crime and who worked on the investigation to track down the culprits, the psychiatrists who assessed them, the lawyers who argued the case, etc., in a masterful effort to reconstruct from within the sequence of events and try to understand how such a thing could have happened.

This book is essentially a detailed and well-crafted piece of journalism with the level and quality of detail to bring it into horrific focus. One gets access to all sides of the murders of a family from the effect on the close relatives and friends to the emotional states of the murderers themselves and their final demise at the end of a rope. No one can escape this book without a large emotional wallop that will leave one's mind reverberating for some time. The book additionally invites questions concerning the limits and boundaries of journalistic integrity. When does the journalist step beyond his role as observer and become part of the story? And...Should the journalist do so and thus change outcomes? Disturbingly provocative in many ways.

'In Cold Blood' is one of the best books of all time. It should be required reading in all beginning college lit courses, if not in high school. I first read 'In Cold Blood' as a junior in high school (in the 80s), and I read it in one sitting- straight through the night- just because I couldn't put it down. I have recently purchased this newer edition, because this book is worth reading again.

To begin with, Truman Capote, for all his notoriety, was an incredible writer, and this book is one of his finest. The gritty and depressing existence of Dick and Perry that leads up to one horrific night in Kansas is so vividly represented, you feel all the more frightened as you are reading it, because it seems you have become witness to the absolute terror and brutality perpetrated on an innocent family by these two men. Truman Capote not only presents in graphic detail the horrors of this night, but he also reveals the personalities of Dick and Perry in such a way that, even though they are despicable human beings, you may feel a twinge of sorrow for them. The birth of each man's anger, and the inability of either one of them to integrate into society, was formed in childhoods of abuse. It truly is amazing how Capote got inside the heads of these pathetic men, capturing the pervasive sadness and despair, bizarrely coupled with hope for a "normal" future. The relationship of Dick and Perry is almost a symbiotic one. Separately, they may not have done what they did, but together, they are lethal. The gullibility of a person, who never felt like he belonged, combined with another person who thinks he needs to exact revenge on society- it's a sick combination of pack mentality and ignorance. Eventually, all of this culminates into a night of terror in Kansas wrought by these two men. The portrayal is so graphic in nature; no one could read it without being rendered silently stunned by the horror of it all. The sadness felt for this totally unsuspecting and wholly innocent family is overwhelming. Certainly there have been similar crimes, but the representation of it by Capote, and the intrinsic knowledge of these two men, makes you feel you had a front row view of the whole thing.

`In Cold Blood' is less about the particulars of that awful crime one horrific night in Kansas; it is more about the insidiousness of what childhood abuse and feeling disenfranchised can do to a person. It would be easy to focus on the horror and sadness of this massacre, but the brilliance of Capote is that the focus is placed on the murderers and trying to engender compassion from the reader for them. With Capote's vision in writing, he almost gets us there. After the capture and imprisonment of these two men, you can physically feel the fear in their hearts for their own condemnation. Perry's fear of execution is especially haunting. This book is a must read for anyone who likes to read and makes no difference that it was written 40 years ago. It transcends all genres, because even though the story is horrific, the writing is phenomenal, and you will NEVER forget it.

Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' is enjoying a resurgence of popularity thanks to the Oscar-winning film depicting the author's life and work during the writing of this phenomenal piece. At one point in the film, the character Capote makes the statement that when he thinks about how good this book will be, he can hardly breathe. Perhaps it is because it is part of our history now, I don't consider the book to be that good, but it was a work fairly close to groundbreaking in its impact - it was a new genre, the narrative telling of a non-fiction event as if it were a fictional novel.

The narrative centres upon the murder of a Kansas family by two men, Perry Smith and Dick Hicock, who are in many ways far from typical killers, much less cold blooded killers. The family, the Clutters of Holcombe, Kansas, are far from typical victims, nor is this the kind of place such a murder would be expected. Capote does a remarkable job at an even-handed analysis and narrative treatment of all the characters, from the family itself to the townspeople and investigators, as well as the murderers themselves. Perhaps it is because he found an area of identification?

This is a psychological thriller of a sort - at least it would be, were it not a true life tale. Getting into the minds of the criminals and the investigators was no easy task for Capote, but what comes forth on the page is very crisp and insightful reporting, without the kinds of embellishments one might expect from a figure such as Capote when dealing with middle-America folk.

The question of why for the killing is still never fully resolved, despite Capote's attempt to set out all the story and psychological detail. Perhaps this is as strange as the interest Capote took in the subject in the first place, as well as the effect it had on him, and those around him, ultimately - while Capote himself never again finished a major project after this, that is also true of his assistant, Nell Harper Lee, whose book 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (done about the same time as 'In Cold Blood') was also her last major writing.

A worthwhile book in many ways.

Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' is enjoying a resurgence of popularity thanks to the Oscar-winning film depicting the author's life and work during the writing of this phenomenal piece. At one point in the film, the character Capote makes the statement that when he thinks about how good this book will be, he can hardly breathe. Perhaps it is because it is part of our history now, I don't consider the book to be that good, but it was a work fairly close to groundbreaking in its impact - it was a new genre, the narrative telling of a non-fiction event as if it were a fictional novel.

The narrative centres upon the murder of a Kansas family by two men, Perry Smith and Dick Hicock, who are in many ways far from typical killers, much less cold blooded killers. The family, the Clutters of Holcombe, Kansas, are far from typical victims, nor is this the kind of place such a murder would be expected. Capote does a remarkable job at an even-handed analysis and narrative treatment of all the characters, from the family itself to the townspeople and investigators, as well as the murderers themselves. Perhaps it is because he found an area of identification?

This is a psychological thriller of a sort - at least it would be, were it not a true life tale. Getting into the minds of the criminals and the investigators was no easy task for Capote, but what comes forth on the page is very crisp and insightful reporting, without the kinds of embellishments one might expect from a figure such as Capote when dealing with middle-America folk.

The question of why for the killing is still never fully resolved, despite Capote's attempt to set out all the story and psychological detail. Perhaps this is as strange as the interest Capote took in the subject in the first place, as well as the effect it had on him, and those around him, ultimately - while Capote himself never again finished a major project after this, that is also true of his assistant, Nell Harper Lee, whose book 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (done about the same time as 'In Cold Blood') was also her last major writing.

A worthwhile book in many ways.