NONFICTION

In Cold Blood

by Truman Capote
Vintage. Feb. 1994. 368p. pap. $18. ISBN 9780679745587.
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Gr 9 Up–A slick forger named Dick Hickock hatched a plan to rob a rich rancher in western Kansas, and just before he was released from prison, he found his accomplice: Perry Smith, an unstable loner who’d maybe killed a man. Rumors abounded in prison; maybe that wasn’t true, and maybe the Clutter family didn’t have a safe full of cash. But one night in 1959, Smith and Hickock showed up anyway, and killed them all: husband, wife, and their two teenaged kids. Over the next five years, Capote spoke extensively to everyone—friends and neighbors of the Clutters, detectives, and both killers. His methods were controversial but the depth of his coverage and empathy made him famous for inventing a new genre: the “nonfiction novel.”
VERDICT Capote brilliantly contrasts the underside of American life in this purchase that should be on the shelves in most high school collections.
Reviewed by Georgia Christgau , Sep 13, 2024

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