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A review by saritaroth
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
4.0
This book is a true account of the murders of four members of the Clutter family (the parents, Herb and Bonnie Clutter, and their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon Clutter; the two older children, Eveanna and Beverly, who were not living at home at the time, were spared). The murders occurred on November 15, 1959; initially, it was a home invasion perpetrated by Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith. Hickock was operating on the assumption that there was a safe in the house, information that he had gathered from a former cellmate of his, Floyd Wells, who had worked on the Clutter farm. When Hickock tore the place apart and could not find a safe, he became irate. After the two criminals were apprehended, however, Hickock insisted that he did not kill anyone and that Smith, in fact, is the one who killed all four victims, a claim that he upheld until he was executed for the murders. Smith slit Herb Clutter's throat; Herb Clutter was also shot as was the rest of the family. Despite claiming vociferously that he had no hand in the murders, both Hickock and Smith were convicted and executed for the crimes, perhaps because of the violent nature of the murders. Smith claimed that Hickock murdered the two women, Nancy and Bonnie, but refused to sign the confession and instead took responsibility for all four murders, presumably out of sympathy for Hickock's mother. While Smith seemed to have no qualms about killing the family, he has always drawn the line at crimes of a sexual nature, seeing them as perverse and disgusting. According to Capote, Hickock had pedophiliac compulsions and had a desire to rape Nancy Clutter before she was shot, but Smith stopped him.
I have also read a book review of this book, and it claims that Capote's version of the crime was not always necessarily accurate; he tends to slant things more Smith's way, painting Hickock as a pedophile when he may not have actually been one and he may not have tried to rape Nancy. There was, apparently, mention of Hickock's pedophilia in his psychiatric report, but again there is controversy over whether or not that report was fabricated for the purposes of Capote's book. In the book, Capote did mention that, at some point, Smith claimed to have murdered all the victims single-handedly, corroborating Hickock's claims of innocence, although the home invasion was Hickock's plan initially. There's no way to know what really happened.
I wanted to give this book five stars; the only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that, often, Capote went off on tangents that became quite boring. Some tangents were historical and had nothing to do with crime of any kind; other tangents discussed the violent crimes of other offenders, which while interesting, did not have anything to do with the Clutter family murders. I am sure that Capote was just trying to "set the scene," but it did get quite long-winded and annoying at times.
This book was published in 1966 and, one year later, in 1967, a movie came out starring Scott Wilson and Robert Blake as the murdering duo. I haven't watched it yet, but I hope to once I check it out of the library. Despite a few long-winded diatribes found in this book, I do highly recommend it. It was definitely a worthwhile read!
I have also read a book review of this book, and it claims that Capote's version of the crime was not always necessarily accurate; he tends to slant things more Smith's way, painting Hickock as a pedophile when he may not have actually been one and he may not have tried to rape Nancy. There was, apparently, mention of Hickock's pedophilia in his psychiatric report, but again there is controversy over whether or not that report was fabricated for the purposes of Capote's book. In the book, Capote did mention that, at some point, Smith claimed to have murdered all the victims single-handedly, corroborating Hickock's claims of innocence, although the home invasion was Hickock's plan initially. There's no way to know what really happened.
I wanted to give this book five stars; the only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that, often, Capote went off on tangents that became quite boring. Some tangents were historical and had nothing to do with crime of any kind; other tangents discussed the violent crimes of other offenders, which while interesting, did not have anything to do with the Clutter family murders. I am sure that Capote was just trying to "set the scene," but it did get quite long-winded and annoying at times.
This book was published in 1966 and, one year later, in 1967, a movie came out starring Scott Wilson and Robert Blake as the murdering duo. I haven't watched it yet, but I hope to once I check it out of the library. Despite a few long-winded diatribes found in this book, I do highly recommend it. It was definitely a worthwhile read!