Fact-based novel about a multiple murder broke new ground
Truman Capote was known not only for his literary style, but also for his striking personality and infamous lifestyle. After experiencing success with the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, he blew readers and critics away with his revolutionary work In Cold Blood.
by Truman Capote
Random House
Truman Capote was known not only for his literary style, but also for his striking personality and infamous lifestyle. After experiencing success with the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, he blew readers and critics away with his revolutionary work In Cold Blood.
In this book, Capote pioneered a new genre - the nonfiction novel - and his research process is integral to understanding the plot. This partly fictionalised, journalistic account of the brutal murders of an affluent farm owner's family was first published in four parts in The New Yorker in late 1965.
The idea first came to Capote by way of a tiny 300-word article in The New York Times in 1959. It was a short summary of the unexplained shootings in a small Kansas town. Herbert Clutter, a wealthy wheat farmer, was found killed by a shotgun blast along with his wife, Bonnie, and two of their children, although nothing was taken.