An alternative explanation for Capote’s interest holds that The New Yorker presented the Clutter story to him as one of two choices for a story; the other was to follow a Manhattan cleaning woman on her rounds. Capote supposedly chose the Clutter story, believing it would be the easier assignment. Capote later wrote a piece about following a cleaning woman, which he entitled «A Day’s Work» and included in his book Music for Chameleons.
Capote’s novel was unconventional for its time. New Journalism, as a genre and style of writing, developed during the time in which In Cold Blood was written and Capote became a pioneer in showing how it can be used effectively to create a unique non-fiction story. New Journalism is a style of writing by which the author writes the non-fiction novel or story while it is developing in real life. This is exactly what Capote did as he followed the court trials and interviewed those close to the Clutter family to create this story while it was unfolding in the real world. As a result, he simultaneously researched and wrote the story we now know as In Cold Blood.
Veracity
In Cold Blood brought Capote much praise from the literary community. However, some critics have questioned its veracity, arguing that Capote changed facts to suit the story, added scenes that never took place, and manufactured dialogue. Phillip K. Tompkins noted factual discrepancies in Esquire in 1966 after he traveled to Kansas and talked to some of the people whom Capote had interviewed. Josephine Meier was the wife of Finney County Undersheriff Wendle Meier, and she denied that she heard Smith cry or that she held his hand, as described by Capote. In Cold Blood indicates that Meier and Smith became close, yet she told Tompkins that she spent little time with Smith and did not talk much with him. Tompkins concluded:
Capote has, in short, achieved a work of art. He has told exceedingly well a tale of high terror in his own way. But, despite the brilliance of his self-publicizing efforts, he has made both a tactical and a moral error that will hurt him in the short run. By insisting that «every word» of his book is true he has made himself vulnerable to those readers who are prepared to examine seriously such a sweeping claim.
True-crime writer Jack Olsen also commented on the fabrications:
I recognized it as a work of art, but I know fakery when I see it … Capote completely fabricated quotes and whole scenes … The book made something like $6 million in 1960s money, and nobody wanted to discuss anything wrong with a moneymaker like that in the publishing business.
His criticisms were quoted in Esquire, to which Capote replied, «Jack Olsen is just jealous.»
That was true, of course … I was jealous—all that money? I’d been assigned the Clutter case by Harper & Row until we found out that Capote and his cousin sic Harper Lee had been already on the case in Dodge City for six months … That book did two things. It made true crime an interesting, successful, commercial genre, but it also began the process of tearing it down. I blew the whistle in my own weak way. I’d only published a couple of books at that time—but since it was such a superbly written book, nobody wanted to hear about it.
The prosecutor involved in the case, Duane West, claimed that the story lacked veracity because Capote failed to get the true hero right. Richard Rohlader took the photo showing that two culprits were involved, and West suggested that Rohlader was the one deserving the greatest praise. Without that picture, West believed, the crime might not have been solved. West had been a friend of Capote’s while he was writing the book, and had been invited by him to New York City to see Hello, Dolly!, where he met Carol Channing after the show. Their relationship soured when Capote’s publisher attempted to get West to sign a non-compete agreement to prevent him from writing his own book about the murders. Despite a series of malicious rumors, Capote himself was never considered a suspect in the killings.
Alvin Dewey was the lead investigator portrayed in In Cold Blood, and stated that the scene in which he visits the Clutters’ graves was Capote’s invention. Other Kansas residents whom Capote interviewed later claimed that they or their relatives were mischaracterized or misquoted. Dewey said that the rest of the book was factually accurate, but further evidence indicates that it is not as «immaculately factual» as Capote had always claimed it to be.
The book depicts Dewey as being the brilliant investigator who cracks the Clutter murder case, but files recovered from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation show that Floyd Wells came forward of his own volition to name Hickock and Smith as likely suspects; furthermore, Dewey did not immediately act on the information, as the book portrays him doing, because he still believed that the murders were committed by locals who «had a grudge against Herb Clutter».
Ronald Nye, the son of former Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Harold R. Nye, collaborated with author Gary McAvoy in disclosing parts of his father’s personal investigative notebooks which challenged the veracity of In Cold Blood. Their book, And Every Word is True, lays out previously unknown facts of the investigation, and suggests that Herbert Clutter’s death may have been a murder-for-hire plot which involved a potential third suspect. However, McAvoy concedes that «neither Hickock nor Smith mention any of this in their confessions, or in their defense at trial».
Publication
In Cold Blood was first published as a four-part serial in The New Yorker, beginning with the September 25, 1965, issue. The piece was an immediate sensation, particularly in Kansas, where the usual number of New Yorker copies sold out immediately. In Cold Blood was first published in book form by Random House on January 17, 1966.
The cover, which was designed by S. Neil Fujita, shows a hatpin with what appeared originally as a red drop of blood at its top end. After Capote first saw the design, he requested that the drop be made a deeper shade of red to represent the passage of time since the incident. A black border was added to the ominous image.
Reviews and impact
Writing for The New York Times, Conrad Knickerbocker praised Capote’s talent for detail throughout the novel and declared the book a «masterpiece»; an «agonizing, terrible, possessed, proof that the times, so surfeited with disasters, are still capable of tragedy.»
In a controversial review of the novel, published in 1966 for The New Republic, Stanley Kauffmann, criticising Capote’s writing style throughout the novel, states that Capote «demonstrates on almost every page that he is the most outrageously overrated stylist of our time» and later asserts that «the depth in this book is no deeper than its mine-shaft of factual detail; its height is rarely higher than that of good journalism and often falls below it.»
Tom Wolfe wrote in his essay «Pornoviolence»: «The book is neither a who-done-it nor a will-they-be-caught, since the answers to both questions are known from the outset … Instead, the book’s suspense is based largely on a totally new idea in detective stories: the promise of gory details, and the withholding of them until the end.»
In The Independent’s Book of a Lifetime series, reviewer Kate Colquhoun asserts that «the book – for which he made a reputed 8000 pages of research notes – is plotted and structured with taut writerly flair. Its characters pulse with recognisable life; its places are palpable. Careful prose binds the reader to his unfolding story. Put simply, the book was conceived of journalism and born of a novelist.»
Adaptations
Three film adaptations have been produced based upon the book. The first focuses on the details of the book, whereas the later two explore Capote’s fascination with researching the novel. In Cold Blood (1967) was directed by Richard Brooks and stars Robert Blake as Perry Smith and Scott Wilson as Richard Hickock. It features John Forsythe as investigator Alvin Dewey from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who apprehended the killers. It was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The second and third films focus on Capote’s experiences in writing the story and his subsequent fascination with the murders. Capote (2005) stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Truman Capote, Clifton Collins Jr. as Perry Smith, and Catherine Keener as Harper Lee.
The film was critically acclaimed, won at the 78th Academy Awards for Best Actor (Hoffman), and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Keener), Best Director (Bennett Miller), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Dan Futterman). A year later, Infamous by Douglas McGrath was released. The film covered the same events as Capote, including Capote and Lee researching and writing “In Cold Blood”. In the 2006, film Toby Jones played Capote, Sandra Bullock played Harper Lee, Daniel Craig played Perry Smith and Sigourney Weaver appeared as Babe Paley.
J. T. Hunter’s novel In Colder Blood (2016) discusses Hickock and Smith’s possible involvement in the Walker family murders. Oni Press published Ande Parks and Chris Samnee’s graphic novel Capote in Kansas (2005). Capote’s book was adapted by Benedict Fitzgerald into the two-part television miniseries In Cold Blood (1996), starring Anthony Edwards as Dick Hickock, Eric Roberts as Perry Smith, and Sam
