In Cold Blood

by Truman Capote

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In a word: futile

In a sentence: In Cold Blood explores the perpetrators and community surrounding the seemingly motiveless murder of a family of four.

Synopsis: A family of four pure, loved individuals is murdered. The story oscillates between

the narratives of the perpetrators, ex-cons Dick and Perry, and the victims, first the Clutter family, then the broader community of Holcomb, Kansas. The tale finally expands in theme to cover American criminal justice before shrinking back to the fleeting nature of life.

Reactions: This book is sad, beautiful, and full of waste. Its elegant full circle nature, which begins and ends with killing, represents the futile nature of each of the six deaths it describes.

For a text saturated with death, destruction, and loneliness, I found Capote’s tasteful approach to the horrors of this tale commendable. He neither shies away from describing the sorrow, misery, and hatred he has chosen as his subject, nor does he indulge the flashiness of gore. His simple, graceful narrative voice illustrates things, and people, as they are. The present, fleeting nature of humanity and all its emotions are under scrutiny.

I read this in two circumstances which connected me more personally to In Cold Blood. The first is that although I’ve never lived in Kansas, I have in two of its neighboring states: Oklahoma and Colorado. As my reading list may illuminate, I read mostly Europeans with a few exceptions, so it was refreshing to be able to experience Capote’s eloquence describing a place and a people which already feels so familiar. My second connective experience is the more obvious one that I have the distinct misfortune of being a law student and therefore having studied both the American criminal justice system and the death penalty extensively. Capote artfully addresses the poor aim of the American death penalty in this book through his exploration of mental illness in the later chapters of In Cold Blood making his commentary a well-informed one if you’re willing to read for it.

Read if: you wish to be drawn in by an unassuming, powerful narrative about grief, justice, loneliness, and humanity.