A review by p_t_b
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

5.0

I would read an entire book or shelf of books about how Capote wrote this book, and how much of IN COLD BLOOD is his language and how much of the words and thoughts come directly from Smith and Hickock and the other subjects. By the end I found myself strangely attached to Smith and Hickok. Before their arrest and sentencing, Smith seems damaged beyond saving and Hickock seems repulsive. By the end of the book, after the extensive correspondence and interviewing that Capote must have done with the pair already on Death Row, I felt attached to both men in a strange way, I felt I knew them. I didn't understand why they did the wretched things they did, and neither did I forget how loathsome they both were, but I felt a true sympathy for them, or at least the version of them that Capote brings across. The two killers as depicted evince a surprising amount of humanity, however malicious their varietal was. Still working through my reaction to this one, but a true classic. Definitely will read again at some point in my life, even though the subject matter is repellent in places -- just so much insight about guilt, memory, and the inscrutable emotional knots that compel and control us.