Ralph F. Voss was a high school junior in Plainville, Kansas in
mid-November of 1959 when four members of the Herbert Clutter
family were murdered in Holcomb, Kansas, by "four shotgun blasts
that, all told, ended six human lives," an unimaginable horror in a
quiet farm community during the Eisenhower years. No one in Kansas
or elsewhere could then have foreseen the emergence of Capote's
book which has never gone out of print, has twice been made into a
major motion picture, remains required reading in criminology,
American Studies, sociology, and English classes, and has been the
source of two recent biographical films. Voss examines Capote and
In Cold Blood from many perspectives, not only as the crowning
achievement of Capote's career, but also as a story in itself,
focusing on Capote's artfully composed text, his extravagant claims
for it as reportage, and its larger status in American popular
culture. Voss argues that Capote's publication of In Cold Blood in
1966 forever transcended his reputation as a first-rate stylist but
second-rate writer of "Southern gothic" fiction; that In Cold Blood
actually is a gothic novel, a sophisticated culmination of Capote's
artistic development and interest in lurid regionalism, but one
that nonetheless eclipsed him both personally and artistically. He
also explores Capote's famous claim that he created a genre called
the "non-fiction novel," and its status as a foundational work of
"true crime" writing as practiced by authors ranging from Tom Wolfe
and Norman Mailer to James Ellroy, Joe McGinniss, and John Berendt.
Voss also examines Capote's artful manipulation of the story's
facts and circumstances: his masking of crucial homoerotic elements
to enhance its marketability; his need for the killers to remain
alive long enough to get the story, and then his need for them to
die so that he could complete it; and Capote's style, his shaping
of the narrative, and his selection of details why it served him to
include this and not that, and the effects of such choices all
despite confident declarations that "every word is true." Though
it's been nearly 50 years since the Clutter murders and far more
gruesome crimes have been documented, In Cold Blood continues to
resonate deeply in popular culture. Beyond questions of artistic
selection and claims of truth, beyond questions about capital
punishment and Capote's own post-publication dissolution, In Cold
Blood's ongoing relevance stems, argues Voss, from its unmatched
role as a touchstone for enduring issues of truth, exploitation,
victimization, and the power of narrative.
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