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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 at 4:00 p.m.
Vintage trade paperback, $13.00
Clair Lamb leads the quarterly Crime Classics discussion group, which today looks at a book that helped create the “true crime” subgenre. Truman Capote described In Cold Blood as a “nonfiction novel,” a book that combined well-researched facts with the author’s imagined recreations of conversations and motives. In Cold Blood tells the story of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who murdered the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the detective who hunted them down. The book resonates as powerfully today as when it was first published in 1966. Among other topics, we’ll discuss the concept of the “nonfiction novel,” the ways Capote blended fact and fiction, and how In Cold Blood influenced later authors.
Reservations aren’t necessary, but if you’re interested in attending, we have included the discussion questions below.
“You are a man of extreme passion, a hungry man not quite sure where his appetite lies, a deeply frustrated man striving to project his individuality against a backdrop of rigid conformity. You exist in a half-world suspended between two super-structures, one self-expression and the other self-destruction… Why this unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or content, this growing contempt for people and the desire to hurt them?” --Excerpt of a letter from Willie-Jay to Perry Smith, 1959
1.) With In Cold Blood, Capote claimed to have invented a new genre, the “nonfiction novel.” How valid is this claim? What makes In Cold Blood different from books that came before? How did In Cold Blood change readers’ expectations of books about crime?
2.) Does In Cold Blood have a protagonist? If so, who?
3.) Does Capote try to keep himself out of the story, and if so, does he succeed?
4.) Capote intended In Cold Blood to support his position against the death penalty – although, ironically, he could not finish the book until Hickock and Smith were executed. Would In Cold Blood make anyone reconsider their position on the death penalty, on either side?
5.) Critics have suggested that Capote fell in love with Perry Smith while writing In Cold Blood. Is Capote’s portrayal of Smith overly sympathetic?
6.) Because the Clutters could not speak for themselves, Capote’s information about them was supplied by neighbors, friends, and other people who knew the family. For the most part, however, Capote seems to have gotten his information about Dick and Perry straight from them. How does this shape our opinions about the Clutters and their killers?
7.) Capote uses several different points of view: an omniscient third person, third person through Alvin Dewey’s eyes, third person through Perry’s eyes, and – less frequently – third person through Dick’s eyes. Does this shifting perspective hide what Capote himself thinks of the crime, or the people involved? How does it shape what the reader thinks of the crime, or the people involved?
8.) Were Perry and Dick true-life versions of the protagonists of 1940s and ‘50s pulp novels, or is that giving them too much dignity?
9.) Does In Cold Blood really explain anything about why the Clutters were killed? Does anything in the book suggest a way these murders might have been prevented?
This isn’t English class, and these questions have no “correct” answers; they’re just topics to get the ball rolling. Please feel free to bring your own questions and ideas for discussion. Hope to see you soon!
This title is not yet available. Please contact The Mystery Bookstore directly to reserve a copy. You may email orders@mystery-bookstore.com or telephone us on our toll-free number, (800) 821-9017.
The next Crime Classics Group will meet on Sunday, January 9 to discuss IN A LONELY PLACE by Dorothy B. Hughes.