"In Cold Blood:" Heartache and Violence

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I decided to read Truman Capote's 1966 book  "In Cold Blood" because I have become intrigued by his close friend, Nelle Harper Lee. Lee wrote the luminous novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," which I teach every year to high school freshmen and her character Dill Harris is modeled on her childhood friend, Truman Capote. Lee, now 86 and living a private life in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, never has published another book. I wanted to know her better and I figured I might find traces of her in Capote's nonfiction novel.  I haven't researched how much of her fingerprints are on this book of richly drawn characters, real people whose presence has remained with me days after finishing this book.

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Comments

  1. Manny11:08 pm, February 18, 2013

    It's been years and years since I read it. I remember being very impressed with it. It has become a classic and it was revolutionary in its form, that is reality written as fiction. Not too long ago I saw something that they keep finding more and more instances of Capote fudging with the truth.

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    1. Allison10:37 pm, February 19, 2013

      That could very well be, Manny. I did not do a lot of reading about how the book was researched. I did "enjoy" the book and am glad to have read it.

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