Nonfiction Annotation

Author: Truman Capote

Title: In Cold Blood

Genre: Nonfiction – True Crime

Publication Date: 1965

Number of Pages: 343 pages

Geographical Setting: Kansas

Time Period: 1950s – 1960s

Plot Summary: Capote, who was working as a journalist/author in New York, became interested in the brutal murder of a family on their Kansas farm.  The Clutter family—father and mother Herb and Bonnie and son and daughter Kenyon and Nancy—were murdered in their family farm home in 1959 but two ex-cons, Perry Smith and Dick Hickok, expecting to find a small fortune in a hidden safe.  Coming away with $40, a radio, and a small stack of checks, the book chronicles their lives after the murder prior to their arrest and the investigation that led to their capture.  

Subject Headings:

            Smith, Perry Edward, 1928 – 1965

            Clutter Family

            Hickok, Richard Eugene, 1931 – 1965

            Murder – Holcomb, Kansas

            Crime Scenes

            Murder victims

            Murder investigation

            Criminals

            Sixteen-year-old girls

            Violence in men

            Small town life – Kansa

            The Fifties (20^th century)

Appeal:

            Journalistic Narration

            Suspenseful

            Detailed Accounts

3 Relevant Non-Fiction Works and Authors

            Capote by Gerald Clarke

                        An in depth biography on Capote including information about his time spent in Kansas and the success that he received from the publication of the book.

            Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Bugliosi, the prosecuting attorney in the Charles Manson murder trial, provides a similar insider perspective to Capote’s In Cold Blood.  Bugliosi analyzes the motive behind the murder for Manson and his band of followers.  This book was the winner of the Edgar Allen Poe award for best true-crime novel.   

            Devil’s Knot:  The True Story of the West Memphis Three

Investigative journalist Mara Leveritt discusses the murder of two young boys in Arkansas and the three teenagers accused of the murder.  The three boys were convicted primarily on their interest in Metallica and wearing black clothing rather than in hard evidence linking them to the murder.  After 18 years in prison, the three accused were found not guilty in the court of appeals and released.   

3 Relevant Fiction Works and Authors

            The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer

Fiction based on the crimes and execution of Gary Gilmore.  Represents a combination of fiction and nonfiction as Mailer used interviews from Gilmore’s relatives and friends. 

            Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

                        For the reader more interested in the philosophy of crime, Dostoyevsky is a

classic in terms of a fictionalized looked into an killer’s conscience. 

            Falconer by John Cheever

                        A man convicted for killing his brother enters into a relationship with a man who

is convicted and imprisoned with him.  Described as bleak and psychological fiction.