Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Words: 914
Pages: 4

A quiet little town where nobody really hears much soon became the town full of people with questions nobody could answer. In the town of Holcomb, Kansas many things began to unravel after people had questions to an unsolved murder case. In the book, “In Cold Blood”, Capote tries to further develop his story to give the audience answers but also incorporating outside documents to shed light. Many people were frighted in there home town and didn't know who to trust due to the case being unsolved. This book gave people mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. Holcomb, Kansas was a place that only a few Americans , even a few Kansans had even heard of.(Capote 5). They were a town with two hundred and seventy people who were quite satisfied …show more content…
When he first tried to get in contact and ask people could he interview them, he got shut down by mostly everyone. Capote says it took the people in the town about a month after everything settled down for them to start opening up and finally start cooperating (George Plimpton-The Story Behind A Nonfiction Novel). In the chapter “The Last to See Them Alive”, there's a long narration given by the school teacher named Larry Hendricks who went with the sheriff to the Clutter house and found the four bodies. Capote stated that he simply set that into the book as a straight complete interview. The school teacher tells exactly what happened from the moment they got to the house, and what they found there.Capote used the interview he had with the school teacher to set the book off (George Plimpton-The Story Behind A Nonfiction Novel) .In that same first part, there is a section about Myrtle and her mother. The mother reports that the ambulances have gone to the Clutter house making it a dramatic moment in the novel, but it came straight from interviews just like the one with the school teacher(Capote …show more content…
When Dick and Perry found out that Capote was writing a book, Perry wanted terribly to see the book.Capote stated that he had to let him see it because it just would have been too unkind not to(George Plimpton-The Story Behind A Nonfiction Novel) . Each one only saw the book in little pieces because everything that was mailed to the prison went through the censor and Capote didn't want his book to be floating around between those censors. The one thing Perry really disliked about the book mainly was the title. He didn't like it because he said the crime wasn't committed in cold blood and felt that the title it self would just make the murders seemed worse than they really were as if they weren't bad enough already. Dick's reaction to the book was a little different. He wanted to change his story because he said that the book wasn't true.He felt that the book did not justify him as a person and that it only wanted to see the bad side of him and not the good side. Once it finally came to the day Dick and Perry were about to get hung Officer Dewey and fellow witnesses stood awaiting to see both Dick and Perry’s death(Capote 338).After Dick and Perry were dead Capote states that he got a lot of fan mail thanking him for relief from he town and also showing people around the world the true American life(George