Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

23 reviews

madeline_p4's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, and Murder

Minor: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, and Rape

awalsh1212001's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Suicide, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and War

tamarant4's review against another edition

dark informative tense medium-paced

3.25

“Am I sorry? If that’s what you mean—I’m not. I don’t feel anything about it. I wish I did. But nothing about it bothers me a bit. Half an hour after it happened, Dick was making jokes and I was laughing at them. Maybe we’re not human." [loc. 4734]

Capote claimed to have invented the 'non-fiction novel' with In Cold Blood. Serialised in the New Yorker in 1965, the decades since its initial publication have cast considerable doubt on Capote's 'immaculately factual' account of the Clutter family murders. Still, this work provides a thorough, if dramatised, summary of the case.

Capote's prose reads like fiction, with metaphors aplenty (the stray cats gleaning roadkill from radiator grills, for instance) and explorations of character. His study of Perry Smith (who may have committed all four murders, or just two of them) is sympathetic, and reads as a depiction of a closeted gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal. The album of bodybuilder pictures; the protests such as 'Some queers I’ve really liked. As long as they didn’t try anything'; the way that Dick, his co-defendant, calls him 'honey'. Perry's own letters show that he's articulate and ambitious ('I happen to have a brilliant mind. In case you don’t know. A brilliant mind and talent plus. But no education...'). Capote makes it clear that Smith was psychologically damaged by a rough childhood. Dick, on the other hand, is a rapist, a paedophile and a man who enjoys running over stray dogs. (Perry, by way of contrast, tames a squirrel after he's imprisoned for the murders.)

The Clutter murders were opportunist, difficult to tie to the culprits because so random: Smith and Hickock drove hundreds of miles to rob a man they'd never met, a man who a fellow prisoner told them had a safe full of money. (He didn't.) Capote writes 'The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning.' And though his depiction of the victims is sympathetic and touching, he never met them: it was the murderers, and especially Perry Smith, who held his attention.

Read for a 'true crime' reading challenge on StoryGraph, and because it's a classic work. I liked the prose more than the subject matter.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Animal death and Homophobia

ibby2's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

emadisonc's review

dark informative sad tense slow-paced

5.0

Imagination, of course, can open any door—turn the key and let terror walk right in.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism

Moderate: Homophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Animal death and Suicidal thoughts

emy_clemy's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

katadamz's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Coming out of this novel, I respect Truman Capote as a storyteller and master of the English language even more than I did before. However, he did lose any credibility as a journalist or as someone with reasonable taste in men (

allegedly, he was in love with the murderer Perry Smith

). 

I am glad I finally finished the novel. My initial impression trying to read it over a decade ago was that I would happily read a book about small town American life written by Capote, but that the brutality of these murders was hard to stomach. I stand by that assessment, especially as it crawled to the conclusion, with Capote's focus narrowing onto

Leavenworth's death row

to an almost disturbing focus. The prose though, is beautiful and sparse, in a beautiful mid-20th century style. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, and Rape

soswiin's review against another edition

dark informative tense medium-paced

4.0

definitely a unique format that grabbed my attention more than i thought it would've. yes, inventing dialogue and scenes made it read more like a novel than an informative essay as capote intended but it just didn't feel morally right. which is a dilemma that encompasses 90% of this book's controversies anyway. capote was brave for humanizing the clutter family's killers and i appreciate it to an extent — it elevated the pair from stereotypical jailhouse grunts to fleshed-out individuals with individual wounds and faults. while it added depth it still felt weird to ready about!! bad childhood ≠ the right to blow the brains out of an entire family. lot of repeated information which was quite helpful given the attention span i'd allotted for this.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Pedophilia, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Homophobia

jbrown1120's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Car accident, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

tlaynejones's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Murder, and Classism