First published in 1965, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is now considered a classic of the non-fiction genre of literary works. With literary non-fiction now becoming noticeable in the literary landscape of Guyana (Gaiutra Bahadur’s excellent Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture is one of the factors that has

revitalized the conversation regarding a category for non-fiction books in the Guyana Prize’s list of awards), it is prudent to return to the past and observe those seminal works of literary non-fiction that have been regarded as the forerunners of works being produced today. In Cold Blood certainly ranks high in this canon of literature.
The book presents the curious and morbid case of the Clutter family – four of whom (Herbert and Bonnie Clutter, along with their teenage children, Kenyon and Nancy) were brutally gunned down in their prosperous home in Holcomb, Kansas. The murders were particularly shocking because a motive for the murders was initially difficult to uncover, as there were no definite suspects, and because the entire Clutter family was well-liked, well respected and considered to be the ideal, successful American family.
Capote’s book offers a unique glance at the crime by providing large doses of the backstory – presenting each of the Clutters to the reader and, in a very literary form, outlining the last day of their life while simultaneously giving depth to each of them by thoroughly presenting their personalities and characteristics based on their interactions with people in the community. Thus, the characters are made intimately human and their tragic demise is made all the more real and disturbing because of this.
Shockingly, Capote employs the same tactics when dealing with the two men who committed the murders: Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The lives of these men are offered up to the reading in extreme detail. In this way, we learn of Smith’s childhood abuse and of Hickock once being a star athlete who had the potential for college. Details such as these coupled with the voices of friends and family ultimately makes the killers as human as the Clutters. There are subtle moments in the book, such as when Hickock makes an authentically funny joke and you, the reader, laugh at it only to ponder moments later why you laughed at something a mass murderer said over fifty years ago. Such is the skill of Capote.
The book itself works as a thriller. It is tense and riveting, from the beginning – where the key characters are presented – up to the end in the courtroom scenes that are so taut with tension and so well written that they read as though they belong in a movie. Also commendable is the restraint and discipline found in Capote’s writing. The night of the murder and the events that actually transpired, for example, are tantalizingly withheld from the reader until the second half of the book and yet, everything leading up to that point remains interesting enough so that the reader never loses focus.
As a work of non-fiction, Capote also manages to transport the reader back in time to rural America in the late 1950s. Images from old days, such as Nancy and her boyfriend at the river-side or the killers hitchhiking on country roads or the awful treatment of children in that era, are almost foreign to the Millenial mind. Thankfully, Capote is remarkable at representing the era, managing to take the reader there and keeping him/her trapped in that place until the last page of the book.