In Cold Blood (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

The Clutters: By this time the reader is well acquainted with, and probably empathetic towards the Clutter Family. They are safe, secure and responsible, living-out a version of the American Dream. Mrs.Clutter does suffer from some depressive illness, but this is largely unacknowledged and entirely unaddressed by the family. This storm cloud is not allowed to dim the brightness for this successful Bible Belt family. Mr.Clutter, unaware of the welter of confusion suppressed under his wife's bizarre behaviour, deals with it privately by rearranging the emotional and physical furniture of the household. Mrs.Clutter depends emotionally on everyone around her, including children and strangers. Sleeping separately from her husband, she elicits kindly treatment from everyone, like a pet dog. She is ill. Like the soon-to-be killers are ill...

The second half of the book gradually discloses, without melodrama, the circumstances and nature of the crime.

The final section poses the religious, social, legal and moral dilemmas. This is the issue whether the killers knew the difference between right and wrong at the time of the crime. The deciding convention in the McNaughton Rule, which does not allow the mentally ill to know the difference between right and wrong. If they do know the difference they are not (per se) mentally ill.

The Killers: The reader is presented with a radically different American culture in the lives of these two men. It is the opposite of the Clutter Dream. It is the American Nightmare. It is a culture of crime, alienation, broken and perverse relationships, illicit sexual fantasy and practice, irresponsibility, lack of education, hopelesness and the cheapness of human life. These men are feckless. It is a culture in which intelligence is a curse, not a glittering prize.

The Reader: You close the book with a feeling that you have been in the presence of a violent confrontation between the worlds of sanity and insanity, truth and hypocrisy, fulfillable dreams and schizophrenic fantasy, without the comfort of quite knowing which is which. What is 'Right'? Uncomfortably for you, it is not an alien place. There are many similar accounts from many cultures, and you have seen and heard it all before. The end of this particular version of the conflict is death for all participants, and in the end (as in the beginning) the death of inquiry.

The Denoument: A specialist in the field of psychiatry, Dr.Jones, had he not been confined by the McNaughton Rule, would have said that Richard Hickock may have acted as he did as a result of a behavioural disorder caused by a brain injury sustained some years previously. He would also have said that Perry Smith's actions on that day were the actions of a critically ill paranoid schizophrenic. As it was, he was only permitted to answer 'Yes' or 'No' to the question whether the killers knew the difference between right and wrong. His answer, without the allowance of qualificvation, had to be 'Yes'.

The Politics: The political conflict in the courtroom was between a literalistic Biblical, and a medical (psychiatric)world-view. The Bible demanded revenge 'an eye for an eye'. The medical requirement was more complex, threatening the Calvinistic establishment. In a Bible Belt society,with literalistic Biblical laws, the voice of medicine was unlikely to be heard. Nor was it - even in the course of four appeals to the Supreme Court.

The unsatisfying conclusion, with the legal murder of the two sick men, is that there was no motive - simply an evil (religious judgement) act. A medically-based conclusion would have been more enlightening. But then, what has fundamentalist Christianity got to do with enlightenment? Perhaps it is fanciful, and I am reading too much into the text, but 'Wind voices' recalls the Gospel record of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, whom Jesus describes as being "like the wind, blosing where it wills..." Mr.Clutter's treatment of his spirit-bent wife, and the court's treatment of the two spirit-touched killers...


In Cold Blood illuminates the obscure vision of born killers   September 7, 1999
 0 out of 5 found this review helpful

After reading In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, the formerly obscure vision of "natural born killers" is finally illuminated by their own words. To paraphrase Perry Smith, the killer of the Clutter family, somebody had to pay for all of the cruelty he had suffered during his life, even though these people were completely unknown, innocent, and admirable from every point of view.

The book chronicles the crime of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who, acting upon information provided by one of Hickock's former fellow inmates, drive off to Kansas to pursue the contents of one Mr. Herbert Clutter's alleged home safe. Mr. Herbert Clutter, an immensely successful and humble Kansas farmer, and his wife, teen-aged son and daughter are spending a typical quiet Saturday evening at home. After retiring for the evening, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock walk into the house and after discovering that there is no safe and precious little cash at the Clutter residence, systematically murder each member of the family. Each of the victims are tied up and shot in the head. So ends the lives of a fine, decent American family and so begins the examination of the crime in the seamless, highly readable account by Truman Capote.

Truman Capote takes the reader with the murderers on their long journey to the hangman's noose in the most intelligent manner of any crime writer to date. He doesn't leave anything out of the events and lives of the murderers and yet there is nothing superfluous or gratuitous about the account.

In Cold Blood is quite a departure from Breakfast at Tiffany's, to say the least, but for anyone who has read Answered Prayers, it is easy to look back with that good old twenty-twenty hindsight to see that Truman Capote never shrinks from an unpleasant topic. He, in fact, embraces it with his customary gusto and stylish restraint. However, In Cold Blood, presents the reader with an array of issues to ponder, inspiration to learn more about the trial. Mr. Capote addresses the possibility that the two killers were denied a fair trial since the venue of the trial was right in the heart of the region where the Clutter family were known and loved by so many. There were questions about the competency of the prosecution and defense attorneys, the impartiality of the judge, all kinds of good stuff to chew on, to this day, if you are a hard-core advocate of the rights of the incarcerated self-confessed murderer.

There is also some rather toothsome stuff for those who fervently believe in capital punishment (but would be content with plain old punishment) in cases such as O.J. Simpson. There is a twisted form of satisfaction, a faintly amusing irony, to be derived from the notion that Perry Smith and Richard Hickock paid with their lives for the future celebrated murderers who got off Scot-free? I wonder how Perry Smith would feel about that? Could his twisted sense of justice make sense of that concept?

In Cold Blood is deftly written to leave the determinations of the outcome of the case to the reader. It would have been so easy for Truman Capote to slide in his own sentiments about the case but he stuck to excellence in writing, in reportage, and creating another one of those "can't put it down" books of my summer of 1999.


Excellent   October 16, 1998
 6 out of 9 found this review helpful

A truly amazing book. This was the first of Truman Capote's books that I read and I now know what I had been missing. His writing style is accessible without losing any of the beauty of language and his descriptive narratives are breathtaking. In Cold Blood (the account of a true crime) opens with the murderers driving across the States towards their victims while the family themselves are just living out another day. The tension builds and the sympathy Capote evokes in the reader for the family is indescribable. Yet as the story unfolds it is possible to begin understanding (although never truly sympathising) with the murderers. Such was my emotional involvement by the time that Perry finally relates what actually happen on that tragic night that I could not continue reading (in fact I had to check with someone who had already read the book that it was bearable). Having said that it is important to remember that this book is not a "gory shocker" but is a cerebral and truthful recreation of a horrific crime. I think the most lasting impression that the reader is left with is how absolutely senseless and pointless the deaths were. Read it.