Running, jumping, climbing trees…

In Cold Blood by Katerw

European Vibe Magazine, May 2008

The American Dream

There was something quintessentially American about Truman Capote. Something ingrained both deep within his writing and his personality that exuded both the sass and the hedonism of mid-twentieth century United States. At the mention of his name, the seductive novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, might spring to mind, as might anecdotes of the endless parties and his reckless drug binges conducted from his position at the head of a New York artistic clique during the 1950s and 1960s.

Whilst some of these facts are indisputably true, it is well worth remembering that the maverick author composed the majority of his most famous work, In Cold Blood, in a seaside cottage, perched less than a minute from the gentle waves of the Mediterranean on the Spanish Costa Brava. The coast that arcs up from Barcelona towards the French border, full of vivid blues and greens, has long been considered the perfect nursery for creative work and Capote spent much of his time during the early 1960s exploiting the relaxed atmosphere it afforded him.

In writing In Cold Blood, Capote claimed to have established a new literary genre; the non fiction novel. The book examined the brutal murders of a wealthy farming family in Kansas in an apparently motiveless crime. Following the killings, Capote had spent months embedding himself within the local community, collecting hundreds of pages of notes in a series of interviews with citizens of the shocked Mid Western village of Holcomb. Upon his return to New York, he announced to his peers that he intended to seek a period of seclusion, isolating himself from his usual temptations, and slipped away to Spain where he was to write one of the most significant books of the century.

Natural talent

Few writers have shared quite the sense of rhythm for the English language that was Capote’s natural gift. His depiction of the Kansan community was haunting: full of withering imagery and seductive prose. Capote is one of those authors who is well worth quoting at length, and the first page of In Cold Blood sees him already at his glittering best,

“Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clean air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes.”

This style was a clear departure from the accepted way of reporting factual events, either in newspapers or on the radio. Inspired by Capote’s success in fusing detail and drama with a factual story, the ‘new journalism’ movement grew in the wake of the book’s publication. Stories weren’t just expected to be factually accurate, but also aesthetically pleasing. Others were not impressed, decrying the author for debasing the truth and converting real people without permission into works of art.

Nevertheless, In Cold Blood remains a breathtakingly good read. Its characterisation of the murdered family and the two merciless killers is vivid and harrowing: the American dream turning into the American nightmare. Of all the memorable, biting sentences that Capote authored during those comfortable years spent on the Spanish coast, one, spoken by the murderer Perry Smith about his first victim Herbert Clutter, will brand itself into the readers’ conscience for its sheer distain for human life.

“I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.”