In Cold Blood

This week I finished watching The Staircase, a thirteen-part documentary on the death of Kathleen Peterson. It’s the third True Crime series I’ve watched on the network; the others being Making A Murderer and The Keepers. The most famous programme in this genre though dates back twenty years. In 1994 the NBA finals were interrupted when film crews left the major tournament to centre their cameras on a car chase involving former American footballer, O.J. Simpson. It was alleged that Simpson had killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. After Simpson gave himself up to the police, he was tried in Los Angeles County Court – more significant though, in the court of public opinion. Millions of people watched, deliberated and returned their verdicts. Many gasped in disbelief when the foreman of the jury announced ‘Not Guilty.’ From here America and the world were hooked. Television, from this point, knew that true crime equaled ratings.

Other than Adam Sandler's multi-million dollar deal, Netflix is responsible for other True Crimes. 

Other than Netflix, I’ve enjoyed the podcasts Serial, that looks at the Adnan Syed case where journalist Sarah Koenig scrutinises the evidence behind his guilty verdict; and All Killa No Filla, which has comedians Kiri Pritchard-McClean and Rachel Fairburn cast a very funny eye over serial killers. (The jokes I should hasten to add are always at the expense of the murderers. Frequently, we learn they’re pitiful misogynists; it's therefore poetic justice to have these funny women castrate their egos.)

I guess this points to a fascination in crime and punishment. Given I have no criminal record and a clean driving license (Speed Awareness Course alumni notwithstanding), this may seem strange. However, I think most people are interested in the darker side of life. Horror and crime fiction is the most popular on our shelves: why is that? It’s because people want to vicariously experience something in a secure environment. We want to see grotesque lives at a safe distance. We want to acknowledge that these things happen without wanting to encounter them ourselves. Also, the binary nature of verdicts allows us to celebrate or commiserate with our inner jurors. For us, it’s a game. I guess for others what we have to remember it’s real life.

A person who was maybe guilty of conflating the two was Truman Capote. His book In Cold Blood was based around an event on the 15^th November 1959 where ‘four shotgun blasts … all told, ended six human lives.’ Capote, a novelist first and foremost, writes real events in poetic prose. The six lives comprised four victims and two assailants. The victims were the Clutter family, headed by Herbert, a prosperous farm owner and pillar of the community. He along with his wife, Bonnie, and children, Nancy and Kenyon, were killed in their homes in cold blood. The perpetrators lives ended too following their state execution.

Capote was quite the showman on the social scene. He is you might remember the man who wrote Breakfast At Tiffany’s, a novella about a humble country girl that masquerades as a fashionista. In many ways this was semi-autobiographical, Capote wasn’t born into riches and had an unhappy childhood. He was passed from pillar to post, finding escape in writing. Just as the book’s Holly Golightly talks her way into high society, Truman Capote did too. One may wonder how a man that wrote a comedy of manners could produce a work quite as dark as In Cold Blood.

Again, the reason lies in Capote’s backstory. When he stayed with his aunt in Alabama, he met Harper Lee, whose father was a lawyer. Instead of going to the pictures, the two opted for the human drama of the courts, watching criminal cases from the popcorn seats of the gallery. They would stare open mouthed at the protagonists and antagonists before them. When the scene ended and the trial was over they would come back the next day for a new picture with different performers in the main roles. This fascination with the law was what influenced him to follow up a New York Times piece on the Clutter family.

Harper Lee and Truman Capote as older friends.

Decamping to Holcomb, Kansas, Capote became a quasi-method actor. His previous champagne life of tittle-tattle and literary squabbles was a long way from the rural life of Southern hospitality. He was an outsider in an insiders world. Capote had to re-adopt his humble childhood personality to gain the confidence of a grieving community. The research is startling. Along with Harper Lee, he gathered the testimonies of friends, rivals, colleagues, officers and culprits to tell a richly layered story. Along with the disparate voices, he has a lawyer’s eye for evidence gathering, chronicling letters, psychiatric reports, diaries and statements to give his story journalistic rigour.

Many see the work as the greatest work of non-fiction. Some even believe its literary approach to fact was the first of its kind. The opening chapter sure is compelling with its predator and prey structure. We know early on that the Clutter family are alive on reprieve. Death is coming. This is because their movements on the 14^th November are juxtaposed with the movements of the killers. The going back and forth between victim and killer is, I hate to say, distressingly entertaining. It’s the beauty, the tragedy, of dramatic irony. We, unlike the Clutters, are aware of what is heading their way; unfortunately, they’re not.

Capote was maybe the first to humanise killers in art too. Today, we see the man as well as the beast. We appreciate that killers are often man-made, not immaculately conceived from Satan. Capote’s intimate interviews with Richard Hickock and Perry Smith allow us to see the failings in a justice system that hasn’t rehabilitated criminals. Also, we see how childhood abuses can have a huge impact on adult character. For all of that, it could be argued that Capote like so many other storytellers has fallen for the killers. His sympathetic portrayal of Smith, in particular, makes you question whether the account is biased in his favour. I guess it makes me question modern True Crime narrators too: in The Staircase the editor fell in love with Michael Peterson, which makes you question its impartiality.

Hickock (left) and Smith (right).
Murderers like to show off their tattoos. Let that be a warning hipsters.

In Cold Blood was pre-Netflix and O.J. It is the true definition of a classic because it heralded a new genre. Whilst you're in recess, give it a read. I really do recommend it.

In Cold Blood is in all good bookshops.