TRUMAN CAPOTE’S IN COLD BLOOD REVISITED

Thomas Fahy via Zoom

On November 15, 1959, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith drove approximately four hundred miles to the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and brutally murdered four members of the Clutter family. The following day, Truman Capote read an article in the New York Times about the crime. Both the horrifying details of the murders and the strangeness of the place appealed to him. Everything about Kansas—the landscape, dialect, social milieu, and customs—seemed foreign to Capote, and he was energized by the prospect of trying to capture this world in prose. Six years later he completed his “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. The book catapulted him to unqualified literary fame, but according to most accounts, the emotional toll of the project devastated him as a writer. He never completed another novel. This course will review the biographical dimensions of this crime, the book’s often overlooked commentary on 1950s American culture, and consider its legacy in the popular imagination. The class will conclude with the screening of a new documentary, In Cold Blood: The Murder of Holcomb, being released in October 2024, and shown to us through Professor Fahy’s steaming service while we’re online for the final class (P.S. He’s in it!).

LINK TO NOVEL: In Cold Blood 

[A Zoom link will be sent to you prior to each session, typically on the day before your class and the morning of your class.  If you have any questions or need help getting online, feel free to call us at 516-480-5733 and we’ll get right back to you with assistance.]