I finished reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote the other day. I was really pleased with how good the book was. I had never read anything by Capote, and frankly before picking it up, didn’t think I would find his writing to my tastes. Of course, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s also true that you can’t judge a book by what you think you may know about its author. I expected the writing to be lofty and condescending. I expected Capote to find small town living quaint and endearing. I expected his view of the horrific quadruple murder of the Clutter family to show sympathy for the killers. I expected not to like this book.

When I saw it on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, obviously reprinted due to the two recent movies made about Capote, I hesitated to pick it up. However, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to read a few pages to see if my bias was warranted. What I read seemed interesting, so I bought the book and brought it home, and when I finished The Collectors I started in. From the first page, I was drawn into the story which held my fascination right through until the conclusion. I found the writing to be approachable and detached. Capote didn’t write himself, the author, into the story. Instead, he reports the crime from the original plan all the way through to the execution of the killers, laying the cold, hard facts bare for the reader to interpret. I was glued to each page.

I don’t typically read true crime novels, so I don’t have much to compare to this novel; however, I find it hard to believe that there are many others on its level. By detailing the lives of the two murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, we feel some compassion for the two men who are destined to meet their fate at the end of a noose, but Capote never lets us forget the victims. Mr. Herb Clutter, Mrs. Bonnie Clutter, their daughter, 16-year-old Nancy Clutter, and her brother, 15-year-old Kenyon Clutter all met their fates on November 15, 1959. A single shotgun blast to the face. Herb Clutter had first had his throat slit before being shot at point blank range. He gurgled his last breaths while Kenyon lay bound and gagged in the next room, awaiting his own death. The killers moved from room to room, killing each of the Clutters in an inexplicably savage act and for shallow reasons at best.

Throughout the novel, Capote demonstrates the effect the murders had on the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, and its larger neighbor, Garden City. The four shotgun blasts destroyed the peaceful tranquility of Holcomb and put its residents on edge as they began to suspect one another. The crime appeared so deliberate, that most were convinced that an old grudge against Herb Clutter had surfaced within their community and sought out revenge for some past slight. No one envisioned that the killers would have driven so far to kill the Clutter family, who although quite rich for their town, kept little of value in their home. Few, the killers included, were capable of understanding what drives men to kill. Capote certainly presents enough evidence to suggest some possibilities, but leaves it to us to form any conclusions.

"Well, he wasn’t the worst young man I ever saw. That night, after I’d gone to bed, I said as much to my husband. But Wendle snorted. Wendle was one of the first on the scene after the crime was discovered. He said he wished I’d been out at the Clutter place when they found the bodies. Then I could’ve judged for myself hust how gentle Mr. Smith was. Him and his friend Hickock. He said they’d cut out your heart and never bat an eye. There was no denying it - not with four people dead. And I lay awake wondering if either one was bothered by it - the thought of those four graves.”
Mrs. Josephine Meier, wife of Undersheriff Wendle Meier