I’m a huge Truman Capote fan.
There, I’ve said it. Yes, I know he was a duplicitous little drunk, but he was one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, and I only wish I could write like he did.
He wrote several books, all of which I’ve read. He wrote for magazines, worked on movie scripts, and wrote some of the best short stories ever. A Thanksgiving Visitor and A Christmas Memory as examples.
But, his most famous work was In Cold Blood.
Published in 1966, it was billed as the first non-fiction novel. The book is based on a “true crime”, the murder of a Kansas family. The family of Herbert Clutter was murdered on this date in 1959. Two of his daughters escaped the murders because they no longer lived at home.
A shocking, brutal event, the family’s murder shook the town of Holcomb, Kansas to its core.
When Capote heard of the bloody deaths in Kansas, he decided to write a short story for The New Yorker magazine. He left for Kansas, with Harper Lee, his best friend, in tow.
After reviewing notes, Tru decided to turn it into a book. After all, there were 8,000 pages of notes!
It was the book that made him a millionaire, a household name, and an A-List star.
Once ICB was published, people rushed to read his other works which included Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Glass Harp. Tiffany’s was made into a great movie with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, and the Glass Harp became a Broadway Play.
Truman was big. Oh, he was only five feet three inches tall, but he was a super-star, “enfant terrible”, and a coveted party guest.
And he loved to party.
Openly Gay in a time when being so was an eyebrow raiser, he adopted the mantra of the Duchess of Windsor, “never complain, never explain.”
He did not go lightly on the “complain” part.
Capote grew Up next door to Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama. Born in New Orleans as Truman Streckfus Perkins, he was reared by relatives, both crazy and sane, who would later fill his literary works with wonderful characters.
Note to family: be careful.
He changed his name to Truman Garcia Capote when his mother married her last husband.
Harper Lee based the character Dill in To Kill A Mockingbird on Truman.
But, back to Kansas.
Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged for the Clutter family murders. But until the executions, Capote had almost unlimited access to the men. He was able to pull information from Smith about both men and about the murders the prosecutors could not uncover. It gave Truman the information he needed to write one of the most harrowing books ever written.
The two men, Hickock and Smith, had an intense psychological relationship. Capote was able to uncover it, and use it for his benefit.
And benefit he did.
Tom Wolfe, the other great Southern writer (The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff, The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test, and more) said, “The book is neither a who-done-it nor a will-they-be-caught, since the answers to both questions are known from the outset … Instead, the book’s suspense is based largely on a totally new idea in detective stories: the promise of gory details, and the withholding of them until the end.”
He’s so right.
The crime was a robbery gone mad. The killers had planned to rob Clutter, a wealthy man whom they had heard kept $10,000 in his house. There was no money in the home. Clutter paid for everything on old fashioned charge accounts, and wrote checks once a month. He even bought his chewing gum on credit.
The theory is that Hickock went crazier when there was no cash, and wanted to leave no witnesses. Smith is portrayed by Capote as the reluctant killer who was remorseful. Many insist that Capote had fallen for Smith and was trying to put him in a better light.
Capote was not above lying, he deceived both men to get facts and data, but he earnestly hoped they would be executed, and did not complete the book until both men were dead.
The book changed American literature, changed Capote’s life, and sent him on a downward spiral of alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression.
Oddly enough, the assignment from the magazine was a matter of choice. Capote was offered the Clutter story, or he could follow a New York house keeper around for a day, and write about that. He took the Clutter story because he thought it would be easier.
Well now!
But he did do the maid piece later on.
The book, though 45 years old is still relevant today, and is an eerie read. I’ve probably read it six or seven times. Like I said, I’m a huge Capote fan.
A couple of summers ago, I rented both Capote and Infamous, the two movies based on the research and writing of the book. I also read a bio of Truman, and as I read the book, I stopped and read what Truman was writing at that point in his life. I know, it’s crazy, but it’s part of my crazy.
BTW, I like Infamous much better than Capote, but, alas, Capote won all the awards.
So, if you’re looking for good reads, check out Capote’s work. Ok, Answered Prayers is crap, but his mind was wasted by drugs, booze, and mental illness by then. He lost most of his friends with that book, and even pissed off Jackie O and her sister, Lee Radziwill!
And as usual, the original point of my post today has been lost in the details.
52 years ago today a family died. Needlessly, brutally, and senselessly.
And a lot of people got rich off of it.
