REVIEW: In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood
Author: Truman Capote

I grew up in a small town in Kansas not unlike Holcomb where the Clutter family lived. Two men entered their home one November night in 1959 through an unlocked door. They bound and gagged the four family members in the house and then shot them at close range with a shotgun. The closest home was far enough away that the neighbors didn't hear the blasts. Nobody knew anything was amiss until friends showed up the next day to attend church with the family and were met with complete silence. The Clutters were dead.

I read this book for the first time in 8th grade. It was before the days of permission slips for controversial books....and I don't believe the district where I went to school ever banned a book. I had read every other book on the required reading list for my class and my teacher didn't know what to do with me. He finally decided to go rogue, and began handing me books from his personal library. The Mouse that Roared. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Invisible Man. The Grapes of Wrath. The Jungle. And....In Cold Blood.

I was profoundly affected by In Cold Blood. I was growing up....and learning the lesson that The World could be a very unsafe place. People could be hurt or even killed by complete strangers...for no reason. Good people....who never did anything harmful or wrong to others....could end brutally and unjustly. The idea first entered my head when John Lennon was gunned down in 1980 on the sidewalk outside his apartment in NYC by a stranger. I remember being dazed when I realized that a complete stranger could walk up, point a gun, and kill ANYBODY without any explanation or cause whatsoever. It shocked and scared me. Then a year later, I read In Cold Blood....it added to the awakening. A family asleep in their small town farm house.....good people. Kind people. They thought they were safe....safe enough to leave their doors unlocked at night. It was a mistake.

I have never slept a night in any house with an unlocked door since I read this book in 1982. Never.

It wasn't the description of the Clutters, their lives, their deaths that got to me.....it was more the fact that Truman Capote also described the killers in detail. Their lives. Their families. Their feelings, emotions, motivations. I found myself feeling sorry for them....abused children, hard lives, brutal lessons. I learned another adult lesson -- every human being is a person, even brutal murderers. There are reasons that people go down a dark path. This book taught me that not all children have happy, safe lives....some parents are abusive, some drink, use drugs, abandon their families. I lived a sheltered life in a tiny town in the  middle of nowhere. I had no idea that some kids had brutal lives. There is a space in time where every child grows up, starts to learn adult lessons and learns the truth about the world.....my awakening was filled with so many things. The Iran hostage crisis. The assassination of Anwar Sadat. John Lennon shot. Reagan shot. And....this book.

I want to watch the movie Capote, so I decided to revisit In Cold Blood first.  I wondered if it would still bother me like it did when I first read it in 1981. I find this book had much more power when read by 13-year old me than it does several decades later. I have lived through so much, seen so much, read so much that it no longer shocks me that bad things happen to good people. I am no longer the innocent unworldly girl that didn't realize that people kill each other over silly things like money....or for no reason at all.

There are rumors that Capote took liberties with the facts while writing In Cold Blood. Even if he did,  the book is still masterfully written and tells both sides of the story. The Clutters. Perry Smith. Richard Hickock.

I listened to the audio version of this book (Books on Tape) and let Scott Brick read me Capote's words. I found myself thinking the what-if questions -- what if those kids had lived and gone on to have wonderful lives....what would have happened to Smith and Hickock if they hadn't killed the Clutter family that night.....what if, what if, what if. So I guess my final thoughts are that yes...this book still affects me profoundly. But...differently. Instead of thoughts about the world not being safe and being surprised by that.....I found myself feeling sad that all of these lives were ruined, wasted, ended. Nancy and Kenyon Clutter would have done so much as adults, but they never got the chance. Herb and Bonnie Clutter would have lived out their days on their Kansas farm. Maybe Perry Smith and Richard Hickock wouldn't have been hanged in a Kansas prison. Lives wasted. For nothing. As a 50-year old grandmother, this book makes me sad.....as a 13-year old girl this book made me scared and shocked. Still emotional. Just different.

And that in itself makes me sad, too. I wish I was still shocked by a tale about an entire family gunned down in their own home. It says something about the world we live in that the story isn't shocking anymore.

Now, I'm going to go read a middle grade book about something magical or watch something on Disney channel to clear my head. And I'm going to check .... just to make sure .....that the front door is LOCKED.

Sigh.