Novel
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote · 1966
Synopsis
On 15 November 1959, on an isolated farm near Holcomb, in western Kansas, Herbert Clutter, his wife Bonnie and two of their children, Nancy and Kenyon, are found dead. Two men released from prison on parole, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, had heard that there was a safe in the house; there was none. The book reconstructs the preceding day, the investigation, the two men's flight to Mexico and then to Florida, their arrest six weeks later, the trial and the long years that follow.
Context
Its author left for Kansas in December 1959, a month after the events, accompanied by Harper Lee, who did much of the groundwork: the locals, reserved with this New Yorker, confided more readily in her. She typed more than a hundred and fifty pages of notes for him; he mentioned her only in the dedication, and their friendship fell apart in the following years. The text first appeared in four instalments in the magazine, in September and October 1965, before the volume of January 1966.
Who it is for
A long narrative, with a tightly held chronology and continuous detail. It is worth knowing that the accuracy of certain scenes has been disputed. Translated by Raymond Girard.
Prizes and reception
Capote presented it as a non-fiction novel, a name that has stuck; millions of copies had been sold by 1968.
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