Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

On Boxing Day, after too much Christmas eating, I relaxed in front of Foxtel Box Office with a screening of Capote - the film about American writer Truman Capote. Specifically, it was during the time that he wrote his famous book In Cold Blood (published 1965), about the murder of a family in the US.

If you get a chance to see it, it's a great film. It got me thinking about the very type of writing that it spawned: New Journalism.

In one scene, Capote comes to the realisation that he's about to create a new genre of writing - the non-fiction novel. These days, this is now a common type of book (think of all those vicarious travel memoirs like Almost French by Sarah Turnbull for a start).

In another scene, Capote's publisher says that the book "will change the way people write". And it did.

It created a new form of journalism, where feature articles in magazines slowly evolved from extended news stories to longer narratives written in a much more creative way.

This is a good thing for both writers and readers. Other New Journalism writers include Hunter S Thompson, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe.

Unfortunately, outlets for New Journalism-style writing are few and far between, particularly in Australia these days. This kind of writing typically requires a fairly high word count. And, with the exception of a couple of niche publications, the feature articles in Australia seem to be getting shorter.

Nevertheless, it's a style worth studying. And you won't regret reading anything written by the authors/journalists mentioned above.

Comments

[Michigan Seo]

In Cold Blood is Capote's crowning achievement and in my opinion the greatest book ever written. Yes, it is THAT good. Truman spent nine years writing it and created over 12,000 pages of typed notes from his investigation and research on the crime. He became quite close to Perry Smith (the movie “Infamous” suggests that theirs was a sexual relationship but I've never read anything to substantiate that claim).

If you are at all interested in Truman Capote, aside from reading more of his books and short stories, Gerald Clarke wrote a wonderful biography about Truman, which I highly recommend.

[Simon Conway]

Reading Truman Capote is highly addictive. Having read in Cold Blood I have launched into what's probably best described as a Capote binge and am a few books away from having read the lot! I too reccommend Gerald Clarke's biography. I'd love to hear thoughts from anyone who has read Truman's articles, especially 'The muses are heard'.