“I was so different from everyone, so much more intelligent and sensitive and perceptive. I was having fifty perceptions a minute to everyone else’s five. I always felt that nobody was going to understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I guess that’s why I started writing.”

-Truman Capote

Capote’s LifeCapote’s LifeBrief Biography

• Truman Streckfus Persons, born September 30, 1924, in New Orleans. • Grew up in small rural town of Monroeville, Alabama. Took on

stepfather’s name, Joe Capote. Began writing at age 8.• Closest childhood friend was Nelle Harper Lee, who later wrote To

Kill a Mockingbird, in which “Dell” is based on Truman. (In Cold Blood is dedicated to Harper Lee.)

• Dysfunctional Family: Father, small-time con man; Step-father, imprisoned for embezzlement; Mother, committed suicide.

• Died August 27, 1984, in Los Angeles

Quirks

• Only 5’3”, high-pitched squeaky voice• Paranoid of #13• Sleepwalker• Extraordinarily vain, collected portraits of himself• Kept bulldogs and ravens as pets• Knew early on that he was gay and never tried to hide it• Considered himself an excellent dancer and connoisseur of fine clothes

Capote’s CareerCapote’s Career

• Quit schooling at age 17. Moved to NYC.“I was determined never to set a studious foot

inside a college classroom. I felt that either one was or wasn’t a writer, and no combination of professors could influence the outcome.”

• Worked 2 years as office boy at the The New Yorker Magazine. • Won O.Henry Memorial Award in 1946 for short story. (Later,

won 3 more.)“I had to be successful, and I had to be successful early.”

• Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1948, hailed as remarkable achievement for a 23 year old.

• Traveled around Europe for many years. Short story collections and nonfiction for Vogue, Mademoiselle, Esquire, and The New Yorker. Profile of Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe.

• Local Color, 1950; The Grass Harp, 1952; Beat the Devil, 1954• The Muses Are Heard,1956, chronicled tour of Soviet Union by

“Porgy and Bess” (beginnings of journalistic writing).• Breakfast At Tiffany’s, 1968, Holly Golightly meant to be

Marilyn Monroe, but played by Audrey Hepburn in film version.

               

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood“It seemed to me that journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art form: the ‘nonfiction novel.’”

“I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.”

Capote put his effort into several projects, even working for six months on one idea, but none of them measured up to his concept of the non-fiction novel.

“Then one morning in November, 1959, while flicking through The New York Times, I encountered on a deep-inside page, this headline: ‘Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain’…It suddenly struck me that a crime, the study of one such, might provide the broad scope I needed to write the kind of book I wanted to write.”

Capote worked six years on In Cold Blood.

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood: The Writing of It: The Writing of ItResearch

“Why not pack up and go to Kansas and see what happens? Of course it was rather frightening thought—to arrive alone in a small, strange town, a town in the grip of an unsolved mass murder.”

Capote arrived in Kansas with Harper Lee, as assistant. First, consulted Dr. James McClain, president of Mr. Clutter’s alma mater, Kansas State Univ, who gave Capote letters of introduction to Holcomb people. Lee helped break the ice, making friends with wives and churchgoers. It took about a month to get people talking to Truman.

“I did months of comparative research on murder, murderers, the criminal mentality, and I interviewed quite a number of murderers—solely to give me perspective on [Hickock and Smith].”

Capote traveled to everywhere that Dick and Perry had gone while they were on the run to check details against their memory, to ensure accuracy. He went to Mexico, to Miami, to every place they slept, on every road they drove on.

Interviewing

Capote never used a tape recorder nor pen—trained himself to memorize conversations. He listened, then rushed away from an interview to write down everything he had been told.

“Even note-taking artificializes the atmosphere of an interview, or a scene-in-progress; it interferes with the communication between author and subject.”

Writing

“I worked for a year on the notes before I ever wrote one line. When I wrote the first word, I had done the entire book in outline, down to the finest detail.”

Style

Capote wrote sections: (1) verbatim transriptions from an interview, eg. in part 1, comments by Larry Hendricks; (2) dramatic scenes recreated from bitparts of various interviews. eg. in Part 1, scene between Mother Truitt and Mrs. Clare; (3) direct observations by himself, eg. in Part 4, the trial and the executions.

Capote did not include himself in the story. “My feeling is that for the nonfiction-novel form to be entirely successful, the author should not

appear in the work…I think the single most difficult thing in my book, technically, was to write it without ever appearing myself, and yet, at the same time, create total credibility.”

Author’s Own Point of View

During his research, Capote found that there were many opinions as to WHY Perry (trigger puller) killed the Clutters. Ultimately, he believed what the killer said himself: “I didn’t have anything against them, and they never did anything wrong to me—the way other people have all my life. Maybe they’re just the ones who had to pay for it.”

“[Smith’s explanation] happens to be the one I believe is the right one,…I could have added a lot of other opinions. But that would have confused the issue, and indeed the book. I had to make up my mind and move toward that one view, always.”

Relationship with Interviewees

Capote did show sections of the book-in-progress to Dick and Perry. But generally didn’t believe in doing it. Capote did change his text for one of the complainers.

“It’s a mistake because it’s almost impossible to write about anybody objectively and have that person really like it.”

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood: The Writing of It: The Writing of It

Skepticism

How can Capote reconstruct the conversation of a dead girl without fictionalizing?“It’s a silly question. Each time Nancy appears in the narrative, there are witnesses to what she

is saying and doing…All of it is reconstructed from the evidence of witnesses which is implicit in the title of the first section of the book ‘The Last to See Them Alive’”

Relationship with Dick and Perry

Capote was with Dick and Perry the hour before they were executed. Later, he received a 100-page letter from Perry.

“It was a rambling letter, often intensely personal, often setting forth his various philosophies…The last line is from Thoreau: ‘And suddenly I realize life is the father and death is the mother.’”

Perry left all his belongings to Capote.“It was miserably little, his books, written in and annotated…his paintings and drawings. I

simply couldn’t bear to look at it for a long time.”

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood: The Writing of It: The Writing of It

Why are you interested in journalism?

“Because few first-class creative writers have ever bothered with journalism. Its hackwork, something to do when the creative spirit is lacking, to make some quick money. Writers say in effect: why should we trouble with factual writing when we’re able to invent our own stories, contrive our own characters, and our own themes?”

Were others supportive of your idea?

“They felt that what I proposed, a narrative form that employed all the techniques of fictional art but was nevertheless immaculately factual, was little more than a literary solution for a fatigued novelist suffering from “failure of imagination.””

What is needed to write nonfiction novels well?

“An ability to transcribe verbatim long conversations, and to do so without taking notes, or using tape-recorders…A 20/20 eye for visual detail—in this sense, it is quite true that one must be a “literary photographer.” But above all, you must be able to empathize with personalities outside your usual imaginative range, mentalities unlike your own, kinds of people you would never have written about.”

What do you think of Hersey’s “Hiroshima” or Lewis’ “Children of Sanchez”?

“The Lewis book is a documentary, a job of editing fro m tapes, and however skillful and moving, it is not creative writing. ‘Hiroshima’ is creative—in the sense that Hersey isn’t taking something off a tape recorder and editing it—but it still hasn’t got anything to do with what I’m talking about. ‘Hiroshima’ is a strict classical journalistic piece.”

“I’m talking about reporting that is as interesting as fiction, and done as artistically.”

Capote on the Nonfiction NovelCapote on the Nonfiction Novel

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood: The Story: The Story

Divided into four parts, total of 86 scenes, constantly alternating viewpoint.

“…resembles screenplay, in that Capote avoids chapter headings and numbered sections; all the action unfolds in a fluid succession of scenes. The pace is rapid, the fundamental technique is simple.” (Murray)

Part 1: THE VICTIMS - THE KILLERSThe Clutters, friends, Holcomb VS Dick Hickock and Perry Smith

Part 2: THE HUNTED - THE HUNTERDick and Perry on the run VS Alvin Dewey’s investigation

Part 3: THE HUNTED – THE HUNTER - HUNT IS OVERDick and Perry on the run VS Alvin Dewey’s investigation

Part 4: TRIGGER PULLER – MASTER PLANNER – THE EXECUTIONDick VS Perry

Part 1: The Last to see Them AlivePart 1: The Last to see Them Alive

What is it about?

• Welcome to the wonderful world of the Clutters and beautiful Kansas in Autumn 1959.• Please, meet “man’s-man” Mr. Clutter (3), fragile Mrs. Clutter (23), the “town darling”

Nancy Clutter (16), and “sensitive” Kenyon Clutter (38).• And, meet tattooed, disfigured, cigarette-smoking ex-cons, Dick Hickock and Perry

Smith, who IF they were “scrubbed, combed” would’ve struck you as “two dudes setting off on a double date” (30).

What does it accomplish?

• Reader feels just how perfectly “normal” and “safe” the Clutters lives were—Mr. Clutter on his land, the family preparing for a big reunion over Thanksgiving and the wedding of second daughter, Nancy baking pies, Kenyon working with wood to build a chest for his sister—Reader can identify with the victims. I KNOW HIM, HER. Also, recognizes that if it can happen to the Clutters, it could happen to anyone—this is a real tragedy.

• Reader begins to wonder WHO IS THIS Dick and Perry? They seem normal (guitar-playing, singing Christian songs, visiting parents), but why do they have such evil tattoos, why are they buying rubber gloves and rope? Why are they driving towards the idllyic town of Holcomb?

Part 1: The Last to see Them AlivePart 1: The Last to see Them Alive

The text

• “After drinking the glass of milk and putting on a fleece-lined cap, Mr. Clutter carried his apple with him when he went outdoors to examine the morning. It was ideal apple-eating weather; the whitest sunlight descended from the purest sky, and an easterly wind rustled, without ripping loose, the last of the leaves on the Chinese elms.” (8)

• “Where [Nancy] found the time, and still managed to ‘practically run that big house’ and be a straight-A student, the president of her class, a leader in the 4-H (Head, Heart, Hands, Health) programme and the Youth Methodists League, a skilled rider, an excellent musician (piano, clarinet), an annual winner at the county fair (pastry, preserves, needlework, flower arrangement)—how a girl not yet seventeen could haul such a wagon-load, and do so without ‘brag,’ with, rather, merely a radiant jauntiness, was an enigma the community pondered, and solved by saying, ‘She’s got character. Gets it from her old man.’” (16) Details, details, details.

• Dick’s head “halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off center,” with his “left eye being truly serpentine, with a venemous, sickly-blue squint that, although it was involuntarily acquired, seemed nevertheless to warn of bitter sediment at the bottom of his nature.” (29) Suggestive of the Fall of Man from God’s grace—the apple and the serpent

The road to the Clutter home

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome

area that other Kansans call “out there.”

Clutter Family Home (as it stands today)

Part 1: The Last to see Them AlivePart 1: The Last to see Them Alive

The text

• Dick’s tattoos: “The tattooed face of a cat, blue and grinning, covered his right hand; on one shoulder a blue rose blossomed. More markings, self-designed and self-executed, ornamented his arms and torso.” (29) VS. Perry’s tattoos: “While he had fewer tattoos than his companion, they were more elaborate—not the self-inflicted work of an amateur but epics of the art contrived by Honolulu and Yokohama masters.” (30) Begins to show the difference between these two—Dick at the core is evil, while Perry strives for good, but fails.

• “Dictionary-buff” Perry corrects Dick’s crude English. (20,21)

• Foreshadowing. Mrs. Clutter has “on her bedside table—only a Bible. A bookmark lay between its pages, a still piece of watered silk upon which an admonition had been embroidered; ‘Take ye heed, watch and pray: for he know not when the time is.’” (28) Mrs. Clutter is killed while in her bed: “…on her bed, that’s where we found Mrs. Clutter. She’d been tied, too. But differently—with her hands in front of her, so that she looked as though she were praying—and in one had, she was holding, gripping, a handkerchief…she’d been shot point-blank in the side of the head…Her eyes were wide open. Wide open.” (61)

• Reader discovers bodies through eyes of English teacher, Larry Hendricks. (59-62)

Part 2: Persons UnknownPart 2: Persons UnknownWhat is it about?

• Dick and Perry flee from the scene. And what do they do? They eat and rest. Dick goes home to his parents. Then, they hit the road to Alcapulco, Mexico.

• Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Detective Alvin Dewey, tries to put the pieces together. • The good people of Holcomb in shock. Fearful, paranoid. Clutter Funeral.

What does it accomplish?

• Reader now knows what Dick and Perry are—they’re the murderers. But you still don’t know EXACTLY WHAT happened and WHY. Just as confused and baffled as Dewey.

• Reader gets better sense for WHO is Dick and Perry. Dick and Perry don’t get along. Letter from Perry’s dad to the Kansas State Parole Board--Perry’s pathetic and tragic childhood. Mother dead, sister and brother committed suicide, Dad is a deadbeat.

The text

• At the funeral, Nancy is a wearing a red dress. Sue Kidwell recalls, “It was her own design, and she sewed it herself. I remember how excited she was the first time she wore it. At a party. All I could see was Nancy’s red velvet. And Nancy in it. Dancing.” Scene END. (92)

• Dewey’s wife has a nightmare vision of Mrs. Clutter: “She was saying, ‘To be murdered. To be murdered. No. No. There’s nothing worse. Nothing worse than that. Nothing.’” (150). Next scene: Perry is playing his harmonica and Dick and Perry are singing, “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” while hitchhiking through the Mojave Desert. (151)

Part 3: AnswerPart 3: AnswerWhat is it about?

• There’s a break in the investigation. A witness—Floyd Wells, cellmate with Dick. Dewey now hot on the trail of Dick and Perry. Interviews Dick’s parents, Perry’s sister.

• Dick and Perry run out of money, leave Mexico, back in Kansas. Escapes to Miami.• Christmas time. Nancy’s 17th Birthday. Dick and Perry arrested in Las Vegas.

Confessions.

What does it accomplish?

• Reader is rooting for Dewey. He’s working so hard, you just keep your fingers crossed. Learn along with the investigators, put clues together. Learn more about Dick and Perry’s families.

• Reader gets nervous that Dick and Perry might kill again, or kill each other.

The text

• Full text of how the murders happened. Two different versions from Dick and Perry. What really happened?

• Last scene: Dick and Perry brought back in Kansas. Describes the scene: “Among Garden City’s animals are two grey tomcats who are always together—thin, dirty strays with strange and clever habits” who cruise the streets looking for dead birds to eat. At the end of the scene, everybody’s gone home, it starts to snow, and the cats are once again alone. Grey cats = Dick and Perry. Metaphor. (241)

•Main detective in the Clutter investigation

•Acquaintance of Herb Clutter

Part 4: The CornerPart 4: The CornerWhat is it about?

• Dick and Perry are in jail during the trial. Perry befriends a squirrel. Both found guilty, sentenced to death. Life on death row. Fight for retrial—May 30, 1960; Oct 25, 1962; Aug 8, 1963; Feb 18, 1965; Apr 14, 1965 executed.

• New people in Dick and Perry’s lives, friendly jailors, strict judge, angry jurors, weak defence attorney. Capote quotes from Perry’s diary. On Death row, story of cellmates. Other killers, more gruesome than Dick and Perry.

• Perry goes on hunger strike to kill himself. Dick starts writing Senators to save himself.

What does it accomplish?

• The killers are caught and now justice has to be done. But the reader becomes conflicted when they realize that: (1) Dick is the evil one but he’s a coward and couldn’t kill anyone (although he likes to talk about doing it), and (2) Perry is the one to feel sorry for given he’s had such a horrible life, but he’s the one who cut Mr. Clutter’s throat and shot the rest of the family.

• Perry gets an unusual visitor and friend, Donald Cullivan from Boston. Nobody could understand “why a staid Catholic, a successful engineer [from] Harvard, a husband and the father of three children, should choose to befriend an uneducated, homicidal half-breed whom he knew but slightly and had not seen for nine years.” Don speaks in Perry’s defence as a character witness. Later, Perry says to Don, “Joe always liked me. Do you, Don?” “Yes, I like you.” (283) If Don likes Perry, maybe he is a likable guy afterall?

Part 4: The CornerPart 4: The CornerThe text

“The hanging scene is one of the finest of its kind, right up there with Melville’s Billy Budd and the hanging of Popeye in Faulkner’s Sanctuary.” (George)

• Dick’s execution: “The hangman coughed impatiently lifted his cowboy hat and settled it again, a gesture somehow reminiscent of a turkey buzzard huffing, then smoothing its neck feathers—and Hickock, nudged by an attendant, mounted the scaffold steps.” (331)

• Perry’s execution: “Dewey shut his eyes; he kept them shut until he heard the thud-snap that announces a rope-broken neck.” Dewey didn’t care for Dick, but with Perry he had a different response, “for Perry possessed a quality, the aura of an exiled animal, a creature walking wounded, that the detective could not disregard. He remembered his first meeting with Perry in the interrogation room…the dwarfish boy-man seated in the metal chair, his small booted feet not quite brushing the floor. And when Dewey now opened his eyes, that is what he saw: the same childish feet, tilted, dangling.” (333).

• THE LAST SCENE: “One afternoon, a month when the fields blaze with the green-gold fire of half-grown wheat,” Dewey bumps into Sue Kidwell at the graveyard, while he’s visiting his father’s grave and she to her friend Nancy Clutter: “’And nice to have seen you, Sue. Good luck,’ he called after her as she disappeared down the path, a pretty girl in a hurry, her smooth hair swinging, shining—just such a young woman as Nancy might have been. Then, starting home, he walked towards the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.” (335)

The dismantled American Dream loss of innocence evil as an ordinary part of the human

spirit nature vs. nurture Psychiatry fate death penalty sexual identity and relationships

 Did Capote take a stand on the death penalty?  Why could he not finish the book until after the executions?  Does In Cold Blood make an argument either side?

* The tone of the book reveals the author's attitude toward his subject matter.  Capote intended In Cold Blood to be both objective (non-judgmental) and sympathetic.  Is this possible?  Did he achieve it?

* Just before he is hanged, Perry finally apologizes for the crime; however, critical accounts suggest that Capote embellished this part of the novel for dramatic effect, and that the real Perry said nothing of the sort.  What do you make of this apology?  Discuss why Capote might have invented this segment.  Is it faithful to the representation of Perry that the book has crafted up to this point?  Do you think it helps to clarify his character, or make him more ambiguous?

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood: The Aftermath: The Aftermath

PublicationCapote earned up to $2million through magazine, book, and film rights.

In Fall 1965, The New Yorker printed the entire 135,000 word story in four installments. Random House published it in Jan 1966. Chosen by Book-of-the-month Club as its Feb 1996 selection. 1965-66, sold paperback rights, movie rights (to Columbia Pictures) and 15 foreign publishers rights.

The Party of the CenturyCapote gave a black-and-white masked ball” at the Plaza Hotel for his “closest 500 friends”. It was billed the greatest party there ever was. “It was the talk of New York. The elevator operators, the cab drivers, the doormen, as soon as they saw you with a mask or headdress, they said, "Going to Truman's ball, huh?“”

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood: The Legacy: The Legacy

Conversation between Capote and Perry Smith

Smith: Why are you writing this book? What is it supposed to mean? I don’t understand why you’re doing it.

Capote: It doesn’t have anything to do with changing the readers’ opinion about anything, nor do I have any moral reasons. I have a strictly aesthetic theory about creating a book which could result in a

work of art.Smith: A work of art, a work of art? (Smith laughs.)Capote: That’s really the truth.Smith: What an irony, what an irony.Capote: What do you mean?Smith: “That’s all I ever wanted in my whole life. And now, what’s

happened? An incredible situation where I kill four people, and you’re going to produce a work of art.”

Interview with George Plimpton, “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel,” The New York Times, January 16, 1966.

George, Garrett. (1996). “Then and Now: In Cold Blood Revisited.” Virginia Quarterly Review. Summer 1996, Vol,72, Iss,3.

Murray, Edward. (1973). “In Cold Blood: The Filmic Novel and the Problem of Adaptation.” Literature Film Quarterly. Spring 1973, Vol.1,Iss.2, pp.132-138.