Of all the people in all the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary

There is a story to be spoiled here, but it is not a fictional one. In Cold Blood is a 'true crime' novel written about the murder of four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in November 1959. It is based on interviews conducted by Truman Capote and his friend, Harper Lee, which took place after the murders, but before the culprits had been caught. The murders were ostensibly part of a robbery gone wrong, perpetrated by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, ex-cons who were perhaps not on the stablest mental footing. They chose the Clutters based on a tip from a fellow convict, who claimed the Clutters had a safe full of money on hand. The victims were Herb Clutter (48), Bonnie Clutter (45), Nancy Clutter (16), and Kenyon Clutter (15). Two daughters survived who were not living at home at the time (Eveanna and Beverly Clutter). Dick and Perry were tried and convicted of the murders. After roughly 5 years on Death Row, they were hanged on April 14, 1965. The killers got a radio, a pair of binoculars, and less than fifty dollars. 

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

How would you feel? 
I had never read this book, despite it being a fairly established 'classic'. It was certainly gripping, and compelling, and frightening. But all that being said, I have questions. As with any kind of 'true crime' story (podcast, documentary, novel), I wonder if the story is Capote's to tell. Sure, technically anything that happens in the public domain is fodder for literature. But I think the question is not can he tell the story, but rather, should he? I didn't read much about the family or Capote, since I generally like to stick to the original source material (in this case, the novel), but I did see that the Clutters felt betrayed by this book, and by the profit that Capote and others claimed from it. 

So I suppose my question to you is this, readers. How would you feel? If you were a Clutter, would you want this story to be told, and in this fashion? A little food for thought. 

Z is for Zeugma
If you know me at all, you know my favorite literary device is zeugma, which is when you tie literal and metaphorical objects together in the same sentence. Clearly Capote was also a fan. Here are a few zeugmas I found: 

Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.

Boy, when they finally hit Vegas, they needed good whiskey and good news.

Behind the mask of murderers
Much of what makes this book compelling (and also deeply troubling) is that the murders feel almost random, and not rooted in any extreme malice. Dick and Perry are both a little unhinged, and Capote informs both of their characters as we dive deeper into the mystery. Here's a snapshot of each: 

Dick

• Envy was constantly with him; the Enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have.

Perry

• You think I like myself? Oh, the man I could have been! But that bastard (referencing his father) never gave me a chance.

• A psychiatrist's write-up on Perry - He has had few close emotional relationships with other people, and these have not been able to stand small crises. He has little feeling for others outside a very small circle of friends, and attaches little real value to human life. 

I don't think we ever like to think of a human's capacity to murder, but at the very least, we like to rationalize such acts with meaning of some sort. Likely what makes In Cold Blood so harrowing is that no such meaning is really to be found here. 

Lines in the running for title of this post...

• There's blood on the walls. 

• Of all the people in all the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered.

• The next time they go slaughtering it may be your family.

• Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.

Murderers in our midst
For a fairly significant period of time after the murders, everyone in Holcomb assumes that the killers are locals. This seems like a fair assumption, since it is only discovered much later that the killers drove over 400 miles to target the Clutters, and closed the same distance in the next day. 

• One old man put his finger right on it, the reason nobody can sleep; 'All we've got out here are our friends. There isn't anything else.

Don't say disinterested
We follow Dick and Perry all the way through to their eventual deaths. On Death Row, they're joined by a very smart and bookish boy named Lawrence Lee Andrews, who happens to have murdered his whole family in their home. Perry doesn't like Andrews because Perry is used to being the bright one and lording it over the people around him. This particular exchange made me laugh because my thesis advisor, a 60-year-old petite female Russian professor at Bryn Mawr, had a similar passion for preserving the word disinterested. 

Andrews: Don't say disinterested. What you mean is uninterested. Andrews meant well, he was without malice, but Perry could have boiled him in oil. 

Lines I Liked

• The quietness of his tone italicized the malice of his reply.

• The garden was white with sea-fog; it might have been an assembly of spirits: Mama and Jimmy and Fern. When Mrs. Johnson bolted the door, she had in mind the dead as well as the living.

Words, Wonderful Words
dyspathy - lack of sympathy; antipathy

hegira - an exodus or migration; from the Arabic, a reference to Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in AD 622

venire - the panel of prospective jurors from which a jury is selected

I'm off from work and off to another literary adventure. Time for The Bluest Eye. Keep yourselves safe, and hold your dear ones tight tonight.