Book Group: In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote (New York: Random House, 2007; originally published in 1965. 343 pp)

A Brief Recap 

“Mister Clutter was amused. ‘I’m not as poor as I look. Go ahead, get all you can,’ he said. Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last.” (13). 

Reading like a precursor to one of the many CSI crime television series, the quote above summarizes the feel of In Cold Blood incredibly well, a novel where both innocence and brutality collide, where beauty meets tragedy. 

In Cold Blood highlights the grisly murders of the Clutter Family in Holcomb, Kansas. Four people with fatal shotgun wounds to the head. No apparent motive. No apparent suspect.

A lead appears only after a tip from a prison inmate. The inmate, having worked for Mr. Clutter on the farm, shared stories of the rich farmer with two convicts. In typical prison grandeur, these inmates—the prurient Dick and the unstable Perry—boasted of the eventual robbery and murder of the farming family.

With a lead, Dick and Perry soon find themselves caught. After a quick trial and verdict, the pair resides on death row with the gallows looming.

A Nonfiction Novel 

Andrew: In Cold Blood reads like fiction but presents reality. What were your thoughts, Donovan, on the truth-value of this book?

Donovan: For starters, the nonfiction nature of In Cold Blood makes for a frightening tale. It is easy to set aside violent fictional stories due to the widely understood falseness of a tale. However, the Clutter family senselessly died in real life at the hands of Dick and Perry.

“Somehow he haunts me the most, Kenyon does. I think it’s because he was the most recognizable, the one that looked most like himself—even though he’d been shot in the face, directly, head-on. He was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, and he was barefoot—as though he’d dressed in a hurry, just put on the first thing that came to hand. His head was propped by a couple pillows, like they’d been stuffed under him to make an easier target” (64).

I find affinity with an historical individual. Just as I breath, think, eat, and sleep, so too did Herb, Bonnie, Kenyon, and Nancy Clutter. For this reason, the grisly end of this family conjures horror because I can imagine myself in their shoes.

Donovan: How about you, Andrew. Any thoughts on this “non-fiction novel”?

Andrew: It should be known that Capote wrote In Cold Blood as a literary experiment, as an attempt to see if he could write a nonfiction “novel”, one that read like fiction, but was, in fact, nonfiction at its core. As a result of his experiment, it is incredibly hard for the reader to decide whether or not In Cold Blood is a journalistic report, an actual novel, or something in between.

The Purpose of Setting 

Andrew: Donovan, you mention the real-life nature of the case as frightening. Does Capote add anything else to the novel to instill fear in the reader?

Donovan: Certainly. Another cause for horror resides in Capote’s mundane portrayal of murder in the book. Capote masterfully interweaves non sequiturs about life in rural Kansas. As a result, the horrific actions of two individuals settle among descriptions of mundane tasks.

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

For example, Capote depicts Alvin Dewey, the FBI the investigator on the case, meandering often around the crime scene:

“The detective moved from room to room. He had toured the house many times; indeed, he went out there almost every day, and, in one sense, could be said to find these visits pleasurable, for the place, unlike his own home, or the sheriff’s office, with its hullabaloo, was peaceful. The telephones, their wires still severed, were silent. The great quiet of the prairies surrounded him. He could sit in Herb’s parlor rocking chair, and rock and think” (152-153).

Instead of a yellow-taped crime scene, the detective explores the Clutter household finding the serenity of the Kansas countryside pleasurable.

Donovan: What are your thoughts on In Cold Blood’s setting?

Andrew: In all honesty, Donovan, I disagree. I think Capote meant to use the setting as a contrast to the murders.

In creative prose, it seems as though Capote made some artistic choices within the book. The setting, true to reality, is in a beautiful place, which he intentionally juxtaposes against the brutal murder of an entire family. The book begins and ends with striking descriptions of the landscape; the serenity of the plains becomes an unlikely setting for an eerie tragedy.

“This hitherto peaceful congregation of neighbors and old friends had suddenly to endure the unique experience of distrusting each other; understandably, they believed that the murderer was among themselves” (88).

Fragmenting the community, the murder sows seeds of extreme suspicion among the entirety of the previously peaceful and placid town of Holcomb. Much like in Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the reader is able to see their allegorical fall, where sin enters the community, and the first time the community is forced to reconcile with the presence evil.

Wherefore Art Thou, Protagonist? 

Andrew: Donovan, did you find a protagonist in this book?

Donovan: Not really. In fact, it felt like Capote worked tirelessly to keep everyone situated in a moral gray area.

Truman Capote

Despite the clear evidence linking Dick and Perry to the murders, Capote refuses to let the citizens off the hook. As pious Christians opposed to capital punishment, the citizens hypocritically seek retributive justice.

Perry, the murderer, notes:

“Those prairiebillys, they’ll vote to hang fast as pigs eat slop. Look at their eyes. I’ll be damned if I’m the only killer in the courtroom” (289).

Donovan: Were you able to find a protagonist, Andrew?

Andrew: It’s incredibly hard for me to pinpoint a definitive “protagonist” as a result of the great suspicions in Holcomb. Because everyone is a suspect, it was hard for me to root for any one person. It could be argued that Alvin Dewey, the FBI agent in charge of the murder investigation is the best protagonist, but it’s hard to say. 

Perry Edward Smith and Dick Hickock are assumed to be the murderers (the antagonists), but Dewey assumes it must be someone close to the family. However, just as it seems that the murder investigation is going nowhere, Dewey finds the truth.

“The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger—with, rather, a measure of sympathy—for Perry Smith’s life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage or another.” (245)

What’s truly interesting about the novel is that Dewey finds it nearly impossible to condemn the two men responsible for killing an entire family, as they have also suffered in other ways. To Perry and Dick, the Clutters represent what they never had in life, and though they liked the family, they still murdered them.

“I didn’t want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat” (244).

The murders were not due to the hatred of the family, but rather because the family represented everything the two gentlemen could not attain in life. Dewey offers no absolute moral judgment on any scenario. Dewey finds it difficult to press condemnation, perhaps because the novel is set in paradise. Because of the easygoing nature and the near perfection of the town, it is difficult for any of the characters to recognize evil.

Has the Jury Found a Verdict? 

Andrew: Any concluding thoughts, Donovan?

Donovan: I enjoyed In Cold Blood, Andrew. I would recommend it. For starters, the book brings clarity to Capote, a critically acclaimed film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman based on the making of this book. In present times, In Cold Blood might not seem like a genre-defying masterpiece. But it was ahead of its time.

Donovan: What did you think, Andrew?

Andrew: Overall, In Cold Blood was thrilling. At times, it was a slow read, but the suspicion among the characters made it incredibly intriguing. Reading like an NCIS or CSI investigation, it was simply fun. I think that Capote succeeded in writing a nonfiction “novel”, as it read well, sounded like a genuine story, and kept me entertained as a reader. I think Capote deserves high praise for bringing a real-life event into a brilliant light.

Donovan’s Verdict: 4.5 out of 5

Andrew’s Verdict: 4 out of 5
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Truman Capote, born Truman Persons, was an American novelist best known for Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. Capote died in 1984.

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Book Review: The Lifespan of a Fact

The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 128 pp

John D’Agata is the author of About a Mountain and Halls of Fame, and editor of The Next American Essay and The Lost Origins of the Essay. He teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he lives.

Jim Fingal worked for several years as a fact-checker at The Believer and McSweeney’s, where he worked on the titles What Is the What, Surviving Justice, Voices from the Storm, and others. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he designs software.

Evaluating Truth

Recently, I engaged in an existential debate regarding the meaning of book evaluation. My considerations began in December as I compiled my year-end lists. Surprisingly, I found that I rate fiction higher than nonfiction. As I explored the reasons behind my presuppositions, I learned that the rating scale is calibrated differently per genre. On fiction’s side, I rated a book on entertainment value, quality of language, and character development. On nonfiction’s side, I based my rating on the truth value of the thesis. The more closely I found a nonfiction work aligned with my view of reality, the higher I rated the book.

This debate of art versus fact becomes realized in John D’Agata’s and Jim Fingal’s, The Lifespan of a Fact. The tome announces the dialogue around a rejected essay submission on a teenager who committed suicide in Las Vegas. In 2003, an essay by John D’Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. In The Lifespan of a Fact, that essay appears in full with the argument between D’Agata and fact-checker, Jim Fingal, dotting the margins.

Accuracy and the Meaning of Suicide 

The essay, in short, speaks of Levi Presley, a teenager who committed suicide in 2002 by jumping off the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. While detailing a true story, D’Agata’s essay flows impressionistically around the cultural climate of Las Vegas and the meaning of suicide.

The text of The Lifespan of a Fact

By privileging artistic expression, factual accuracy becomes a secondary concern. For example, Fingal and D’Agata argue about the number of seconds it took Levi to fall from the tower:

“’We therefore know that when Levi Presley jumped from the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel at 6:01:43 p.m.—eventually hitting the ground at 6:01:52…’ Factual Dispute: Although the incident did happen at ’18:01,’ according to the Coroner’s Report, Levi Presley’s fall supposedly only took eight seconds, not nine. So the actual time frame would be more like ‘6:01:43-6:01:51.’
John?
John: Yeah, I fudged that. It doesn’t seem like it should be that big a deal, though. It’s only a second. And I needed him to fall for nine seconds rather than eight in order to help make some of the later themes in the essay work.
Jim: John, changing details about stuff like Tobasco sauce bottles and thermometers is one thing, but it seems a tad unethical to fiddle with details that relate directly to this kid’s death. In my book, it just seems wrong, especially since the coroner clearly states that Presley’s fall only took eight seconds.
John: I don’t think it’s unethical, particularly because I wasn’t alone in assuming that his fall took nine seconds. For a while his parents also assumed that he had fallen for nine seconds. In fact, that’s where I initially got the number from. Do you think I’d just change this willy-nilly to suit some sort of literary trick I wanted to pull off? His parents and I had a fairly explicit conversation about these nine seconds with Levi’s old Tae Kwon Do coach. So with that little bit of information, I began thinking about some of the ways that the number nine could play a thematic role in the essay.
Jim: OK, I’ll grant you that at one point you didn’t know the correct number, but now you do know better, so shouldn’t it change?
John: ‘Nine’ is too integral a part of the essay at this point. And I admit that I’m wrong about ‘nine’ later on anyway. So the essay’s not changing. It would ruin the essay.
Jim: It would ‘ruin’ it to make it more accurate?
John: Yup” (19).

Must History Be Accurate? 

Photo by O Palsson

Strikingly, D’Agata finds the artistic representation of the number nine more important in the essay than the fact that the actual event occurred differently. Depending on your view of art and the purpose of truth in communication, your response to such an idea will differ. For some, the truth factor matters above all else because the event is real. Fingal, the fact checker, takes this stance:

“I don’t disagree that these facts are trifling, John, but don’t you think that the gravity of the situation demands an accuracy that you’re dismissing as incidental? This isn’t just about the name of one slot machine. I mean, even if there was no inherent meaning in these details, you’re giving them meaning by calling attention to them… You are writing what will probably become the de facto story of what happened to Levi, and so every detail you choose to [alter] will become significant, because your account will be the one account anyone is ever likely to read about him. And that’s why to me this is serious business, because the record you’re creating now, however minor, will be regarded as the authoritative one, if only because there is no competing narrative anyone else is likely to read or write about this kid” (107).

Artistic License Draws Upon Deeper Themes in Life?

Others more inclined to the thematic artfulness of creative writing will contend that the truthfulness of the event does not change. Whether Levi fell for eight seconds or nine seconds, he still committed suicide. D’Agata would argue that through an essay, a life can be memorialized whether or not it tells the story with accuracy to the second.

“An essay is not a vehicle for facts, in other words, nor for information, nor verifiable experience. An essay is an experience, and a very human one at that” (111).

Ultimately, I find it difficult to choose between the two sides. Accuracy matters. Nonfiction as a genre prospers on the foundation of truthfulness. To intentionally alter facts with artistic license is to insert falsity into a true story. Yet, the narrative function of a story requires emotion. When accuracy forces a story into clunky prose and too much detail to qualify a story’s progression, is not artfulness capable of maintaining the theme and keeping a story readable?

The Lifespan of a Fact: More Dadaist, Less Rembrandt 

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

For me, The Lifespan of a Fact feels like some of the early 20th century dadaist art. Much like Duchamp’s Fountain or In Advance of the Broken Arm, The Lifespan of a Fact elicits an intellectual response. In my mind, I laugh and say, “I get it.” But that response about covers the topic. The Lifespan of a Fact does not offer the depth of an intricate Rembrandt painting where each subsection of the piece carries interest to the smallest brushstroke.

My evaluation of literature remains schismatic. Fiction leans toward evaluative tactics that require consideration of writing technique and plot development. Nonfiction needs a level of truthfulness. But, The Lifespan of a Fact alters my perception in the principle of accuracy versus truthfulness. Levi Presely tragically chose to commit suicide in 2002. If D’Agata’s essay sheds light on his life in a respectable manner (of note, all profits from this book go to Levi’s family), I’m at peace with sacrificing accuracy.

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5

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Posted by: Donovan Richards

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Andrew and Donovan's Top Books of 2011

You Win! Not these Trophies Though... Photo by Snap

Before we dive into our lists for the best books we have read in 2011, a brief explanation is in order. Unlike our musical tastes, the books we read span generations. Thus it makes little sense to only create a “best of list” around books published in 2011.

In fact as you will see, Donovan has only read 10 books published this year. Therefore, we have separated our “best of” list into four specific lists.

First, Donovan will present “Top Ten Books Published in 2011” list which will include all ten books he has read published this year.

Second, he will share his ten favorite novels read this year that have been published at any point in history beside 2011.

Third, he will list his ten favorite nonfiction books read this year.

Finally, Andrew will present his favorite 10 books of any genre or publish date that he read this year in a concise list unlike that other guy.

To assist with clarity, we will include objective ratings of each book on a 0-5 scale so that you can see how we view each book on a grand scale. So let us begin:

Top Ten Books Published in 2011

10. Falling Sideways: A Novel by Thomas E. Kennedy 2 stars
9. Boxer, Beetle: A Novel by Ned Beauman 2.5 stars

8. The Devotion of Suspect X: A Novel by Keigo Higashino 3 stars

7. 33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day by Dorian Lynskey 3 stars

6. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender 3 stars

5. Business for the Common Good: A Christian Vision for the Marketplace by Kenman Wong 3.5 stars

4. Bright’s Passage: A Novel by Josh Ritter 4 stars

3. The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel by Téa Obreht 4.5 stars

2. The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach 4.5 stars

1. West of Here: A Novel by Jonathan Evison 5 stars

Top Ten Novels I Read in 2011

10. Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel 4 stars

9. A Visit from the Goon Squad: A Novel by Jennifer Egan 4 stars

8. The Sun Also Rises: A Novel by Ernest Hemingway 4 stars

7. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy 4.5 stars ; The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy 4.5 stars; Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy 4.5 stars

6. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue 5 stars

5. Oryx and Crake: A Novel by Margaret Atwood 5 stars; The Year of the Flood: A Novel by Margaret Atwood 5 stars

4. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver 5 stars

3. East of Eden: A Novel by John Steinbeck 5 stars

2. Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut 5 stars

1. To Kill a Mockingbird: A Novel by Harper Lee 5 stars

Top Ten Nonfiction Books Read in 2011

10. God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga 3.5 stars

9. The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting toward God edited by Lesle Leyland Fields 3.5 stars

8. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How it Can Renew America by Thomas Friedman 3.5 stars

7. The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer that Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World by Richard Stearns 4 stars

6. Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus 4 stars

5. God the Economist: The Doctrine of God and Political Economy by M. Douglas Meeks 4 stars

4. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis 4 stars

3. Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work by Miroslav Volf 4 stars

2. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba 4.5 stars

1. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart 4.5 stars

Andrew's Top Ten Books Read in 2011

10. Carte Blanche: The New James Bond Novel by Jeffery Deaver 3 stars

9. Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel 3 stars

8. A Visit from the Goon Squad: A Novel by Jennifer Egan 3.5 stars

7. The Imperfectionists: A Novel by Tom Rachman 3.5 star

6. Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain 4 stars

5. The Blasphemer: A Novel by Nigel Farndale 4 stars

4. East of Eden: A Novel by John Steinbeck 4.5 stars

3. Moloka'i: A Novel by Alan Brennert 4.5 stars

2. Oryx and Crake: A Novel by Margaret Atwood 5 stars

1. The Magicians: A Novel by Lev Grossman 5+ stars

Well there it is! If any of these books look interesting by title alone, check the links for full reviews. Enjoy!
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Posted by: Donovan Richards and Andrew Jacobson

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