In Cold Blood door Truman Capote

Truman Capote - In Cold Blood

My book report is about the book ‘In cold blood’ by Truman Capote. It was first published in 1965 and contains about 343 pages.

Title
The title refers to the behaviour of the two murderers in the book, Dick and Perry, because they killed in cold blood, without any emotion. It has a symbolic meaning.

Genre
Truman Capote invented with his book a new kind of genre, the non-fiction roman. It is based on a true happening.

Theme
In the book are two themes. On the hand it is about how it is possible that two pretty normal guys could kill these people without feeling any guilt. On the other hand the book deals with the question of how the government reacts in such situation and if that is a good way.

Characters
The main characters of the book are Dick and Perry. They are friends, who got to know each other in jail. Perry is sensitive, likes to speak with trees and animals, intelligent, but also has another side, because he is the real killer. He had had a bad childhood and his legs are injured through an accident, he is always embarrassed about his appearance. He is a round character.
Dick, his friend, is not that intellectual. He loves his family. The whole happening with the Clutters was his idea. He was married twice, he really likes his women, he even has kids. He is very outgoing. He is a flat character.
Also important in the book is the family Clutter. Nancy and Kenyon are the two children, popular and nice. The mother Bonnie has a depression and the husband Herbert is very popular with everyone he meets.
Another person is the detective Alwin Dewey. He is a good detective, he knew the family personally, and throughout the book he kind of gets obsessed with the case. Because of that he has stress with his family, wife Marie and his two little boys.

Setting
The setting of the book is primarily Holcomb, a village near the Wheat Plains, Western Kansas. The murderers get caught and are kept in Kansas State Penitentiary. It takes place from November 1959 until June 1965.

Point of view
The point of view is a bit complicated for the reader of the book. It changes a lot throughout the story. There are a lot of different person who tell their happenings through their own eyes. That is nice, because it is very objective when you hear different opinions, but it is more difficult to read.

Structure
The book is mostly told in chronological order, except for the memoriesof the childhood and the confessions. There are three big chapters. Truman Capote has a way of telling things very long-winded, with a lot of details, and big descriptions of the characters. In the book there is a new way of tension. It is told before the family get killed and it is clear who did it in the beginning, but through this it even gets more exciting. The reader gets to know the characters really well and gets excited, because it is clear that they get killed but it is not said when.
The author uses some kind of figurative language. For example tells Perry that he sees a big yellow bird in his dreams. It makes the book much more interesting because it gives the reader something to think about.

Author
Truman Capote has written a lot of other books, but none with the effect and success of In cold blood. The other big and important book of him is ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys’. He also wrote The Tree of the Night, The Dogs Bark and A Christmas Memory.
Truman Capote was homosexual, which is a theme in his book The Dogs Bark.

Summary
Holcomb is a lonesome village in Western-Kansas. It is November 1959, the 14th of November to be precise. The Clutter family gets killed by a person or persons unknown. The next day the body of Nancy Clutter, the daughter of the family Clutter, is found. The police is called and the bodies of Mr and Mrs and Kenyon Clutter are found too. The two murderers leave Kansas and go to Mexico, but no-one knows that because the murderers then aren’t even found yet. Then a person, named Floyd Wells, passes information through to Al Dewey, who is put in charge of the case. He knows that Dick and Perry wanted to kill the Clutter family. Then they get caught, in Las Vegas. Dick’s interrogation starts, but he denies that he was one of the murderers. Perry denies too. The trial starts, but it is difficult to find a non-prejudiced jury. They both get killed by hanging.

My own opinion
I really want to recommend this book to everyone. I couldn’t stop reading it, because it was very exciting. I was even afraid at one point to turn the page, because the tension in the book is built up very well, and I didn’t want the family to die. What makes it even more interesting is that this is a real story. It is weird to think about that everything you read in this book has really happened. I think that this is a book that everyone should have read before he dies.