![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This was a world of violence, alcoholism, suicide and dysfunction. One of Capote's devices in In Cold Blood is to juxtapose the perfect 1950s American family with as different a world that was possible in rural America: the environment of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. As the resident of Holcomb would later testify, there was no one who didn't like the Clutters. Herbert Clutter and his wife and two children were bound, gagged, robbed and shot by two ex-convicts who left with $40 and a pair of binoculars. It was only six years later, when the two drifters were executed on the same day, that Capote could finish his book. Capote immediately went down to Holcomb in Kansas, to the scene of the crime. The book was six years in the making, and originally came about when Capote seized upon a 300-word article in the back of the New York Times about a brutal, unsolved murder of Kansas farmer and his family. With it, he invented the "nonfiction novel," becoming a leading practitioner of New Journalism, together with Tom Wolfe and others. Video of guest speakers and Master Classes (requires RealPlayer)Ĭapote was one of the most famous and controversial figures in contemporary American literature, and In Cold Blood: An Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences is perhaps his best-known work.KEEP UP with journalists' beats in Blogfolio, updated throughout the day. READ the Best of Portfolio, featuring a selection of the best published work from Portfolio students. ![]()
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