Inspired by watching the "Capote vs. The Swans" mini-series, I took it upon myself to reread Truman Capote's magnum opus, "In Cold Blood". Published in 1965, it is the story of the 1959 killing of a family of four in the tiny town of Holcomb, Kansas, and the aftermath of the crime, including the search for, and the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of the two killers. The subtitle of the book says it all: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences.
I remember reading this book when I was in high school, probably in 1967 or 1968, well over fifty years ago. Like my recent rereading of "Charlotte's Web", I wanted to see how much more I would get and absorb out of reading a book at age 72, after a lifetime lived, as opposed to reading it as a 16 or 17 year old. As I have learned from such experiences, seventy-plus years of living allows you to see things way differently than what you saw as a high school or college kid.
First off, I more fully appreciated Capote as a writer. The guy sure knew how to paint a picture by putting words on a page. For example, the first three pages of the book describes the tiny town of Holcomb and it ends with this paragraph, which portends all that is to follow in the book:
That, my friends, is WRITING.
Capote vividly paints the picture of the Clutter Family, father and mother Herb and Bonnie, daughter Nancy, and son Kenyon, and the small village in which they lived. Everybody knew everyone, everyone respected the Clutters, no one ever locked their doors. And then came the night that the killers, Dick Hickok and Perry Smith, came to the Clutter farm, ostensibly to rob them of the large amounts of cash that Herb Clutter always kept on hand. In actually, Clutter never kept cash on hand in his home, and after slaughtering the family, the killers left with a portable radio, a pair of binoculars, and seventy dollars in cash. Smith and Hickok then went on the lam and avoided capture for almost two months. The book tells the story of the police work that had to their capture, trial, incarceration, and eventual execution.
"In Cold Blood" is often described as a "non-fiction novel", and I never quite understood the term. Yes, the book reads like fictional thriller, but it's about real people and real events. I suppose that it could be called a "novel" in the sense that Capote often portrays conversations that took place place between and among the different players in the story, particularly Smith and Hickock. Supposedly, Capote took over 8,000 pages of notes while researching and writing the book, so maybe these conversations are all accurate, but my guess is that Capote took license in the creation of many of these conversations.
What struck me most in reading about the two killers, Dick Hickok and Perry Smith, is what complete losers and total bums they were. Everybody is born equal, so we say, and have the same chances as anyone else, so we say, and Capote spends much of the book postulating on how these two guys turned out the way that they did. It is known that Capote spent much time with the two killers, particularly Smith, in their days on the Kansas Death Row, and developed some degree of empathy for them. Maybe you will as well if you read the book, but I am guessing that many will feel that Smith and Hickok got exactly what they deserved. My own feeling is that these two guys are examples of how two lives can be so completely wasted. How many more people like Dick Hickok and Perry Smith are still walking among us today? We probably don't want to know the answer.
Anyway, reading the book, prompted me to seek out and watch the 1967 movie made from the book.
Written and directed by Richard Brooks, the movie had only two really recognizable names Robert Blake as Smith and John Forsythe as Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Alvin Dewey. Scott Wilson, who played Hickock, did go on to have along career (80 credits in IMBD) as a character actor until his death in 2018. Blake's story is better known. he was a child star, and went on to a fairly long and successful career (164 credits), including the long running TV detective show, "Baretta". He was also arrested and tried for the murder of his wife, (a case of life imitating art?), but was acquitted of the crime in 2001. Blake hadn't acted in anything since 1997, and his final years were spent trying to pay his legal bills. He died in 2023 at the age of 89.
As for the movie itself, it can best be described as "gritty." Filmed in black and white, it certainly captured the feeling of small town Kansas (the actual Clutter home was used in the on location filming). It was a box office hit and was nominated for four Oscars, including Brooks for both Screenwriting and Directing.
Grandstander Ratings: Three and One-half Stars for the book; Three Stars for the Movie.
I also read this one:
The book tells the story of the Crew from the University of Washington that won the Gold Medal on Eight Man Crew at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, aka "The Hitler Olympics".
The book tells the stories of the depression era college students who stayed together for four years to win this ultimate prize. As such, it is a story that is inspirational to be sure. However, to me the most fascinating part of the book was the description of what was happening on the world stage from 1933-36, particularly in Europe and Germany, and the last hundred or so pages of the book describing those Olympics were the best part of the book. Read about the propaganda machine of Joseph Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl and the glorification and adulation of Hitler, and tell me that you can't see parallels to what we have been seeing in America this last eight years? Remember the the maxim that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
On a more positive note, the Epilog of the book describes how the members of that crew kept in touch with each other for the rest of their lives, and would row their boat, the Husky Clipper, on every ten year anniversary of the 1936 Games. That part truly was inspiring for me.
I give the this book Three Grandstander Stars. A movie version of this book was released last year and is available on streaming currently, and I suppose that I will be getting around to seeing it one of these days.
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