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DiscountDelight - In Cold Blood
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List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $7.39
Your Save: $ 6.61 ( 47% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780679745587
ISBN: 0679745580
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 1994-02-01
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 1994-02-01
Studio: Vintage
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic
Comment: I read this book last year for the first time, in college, and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. While I'm from the South, southern literature has never really taken "hold" of me, or southern authors for that matter, but IN COLD BLOOD changed all that. Now, having gone through volumes of Faulkner and Capote, I'm in search of any and everything about southern writers. This led me to a recent discovery, a true gem, titled "Inner Voices, Inner Views," by Kingsbury. Now, I'm in search of everything southern. While IN COLD BLOOD doesn't take place in the south, the writer is from there and that's enough for me. The story of two criminals who plan to kill an innocent Kansas family when they get out, IN COLD BLOOD is a chilling tale, told to perfection by one of America's greatest writers. But the truly odd thing is that, after all the carnage and horribly scenes witnessed on TV today, this books still hits a nerve. I can only credit this to Capote's excellent writing style and pacing of the story. If for some reason you've missed this book, make this your first choice on Amazon. Also would recommend "The Complete Short Stories of William Faulkner," and "Inner Voices, Inner Views," both of which are excellent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: In the Mind of a Killer...
Comment: Like many people who have recently picked up this book, I was fascinated to read the novel that inspired the recently critically acclaimed move 'Capote.' As entertaining as I found this real-life account of the savage and grotesque murder of the Clutter Family, I found it disappointing that the novel did not delve into the relationship that grew between Capote and Perry, one of the murderers and the person who actually pulled the trigger in each of the deaths. Capote's prose is remarkable and the way he weaves together the perspectives of everyone involved in the tragedy, including those of Nancy Clutter and her family leading up to the murders is masterfully done. From the opening sentences where Capote situates the isolation of the town of Holcomb (and therefore the unlikelihood of such a crime), readers are guided through the events leading up to and eventually causing the arrests and execuation of Perry and Dick, the two guilty of the crime. Since the aim of the novel was to give a better understanding of the psychology behind the actions of the two guilty parties, the novel is a resounding success. I could not put the book down. For anyone who wishes to see a master weave a narrative, this novel is for you. I highly recommend both this book and the movie adapted from these lines.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Tragic, brutal and gripping
Comment: This account of the Clutter family murder is gripping but also extremely sad. Capote does a great job bringing the Clutters to life. They seem so likable they become fascinating. But the real emotional power of the book lies in the unspoken distress that emanates from the life account of the murderers all the way up to the horrible act...and beyond. One of them is severely emotionally wounded and arguably mentally ill as a result. The other is more of a puzzle but seems also emotionally disfunctional. Both are intelligent but their intellectual potential goes largely unused and appears, in the case of Perry, disarmingly unfocused. The novel is unapologetic but illustrates the extreme complexity of the psychological events that lead to the brutal murder. Cold Blood is the tale of the nonsensical and violent end of four accomplished and likable individuals. But the story that really sticks is the gripping chronicle of two fatally waisted lives.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The detached yet penetrating account of the savage and senseless murder of a family
Comment: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, describes the events preceding and following the murder of the Clutter family in their small town Kansas home. This "nonfiction novel" is based on events that truly happened but are portrayed novelistically.
Capote depicts the thoughts, actions, and conversation of the killers in the weeks and hours before the murders. Also depicted is the homey domestic life of the doomed Clutter family, denizens of the good and virtuous life in small town Kansas.
Dick Hickock, the dominant of the two killers is a psychopath--charming, pleasant, fearless, but with deficient conscience and little understanding of the pain he causes others. Perry, an American Indian who grew up without means, is stunted in appearance, deluded about the riches that await him, constantly nibbling on aspirin to thwart pain from injured joints, and tormented by memories of a sad and deprived youth. Meanwhile, Herb Clutter, the father of the doomed family, is a pillar of the town, honest and good, caring for a disabled with, with children as promising, sweet and hopeful as any parent could wish for.
The family is murdered one by one in blazing shotgun blasts. Perry, ironically, shows some humanity by positioning a cushion under one victim's head. But not a cent is found in the safe the killers had heard, from a jailbird, held millions. Perry finds himself chasing a rolling silver dollar on the floor, a souvenir of Clutter's just killed daughter.
The efforts, eventually successful, of law enforcement and justice to identify, track down, arrest, interrogate, convict, and finally execute the killers is detailed, and the story ends with the visit of a family friend to the small country graveyard where the family was laid to rest.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Capote's Masterpiece
Comment: Arguably Capote's best work, certainly a truly compelling masterpiece of literature. I read it in high school, again some years ago, and having just seen the phenomenal film Capote, it was even better, even more compelling.
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Editorial Reviews:
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"Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre--journalism written with the language and structure of literature--this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by two would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing experiment that has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise--the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks.
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