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"Capote's Legacy"
"Capote's Legacy: The Challenge of Creativity and Credibility in Literary Journalism"
Introduction
Literary journalist Tom Wolfe has written:
The most gifted writers are those who manipulate the memory sets of the reader in such a rich fashion that they create within the mind of the reader an entire world that resonates with the reader's real emotions. The events are merely taking place on the page, in print, but the emotions are real. Hence the unique feeling when one is absorbed in a certain book, 'lost' in it.[1]
For decades author Truman Capote has been praised for the resonant, literary quality of his book In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences.[2] This ability to provoke an emotional response in his readers has become one of the cornerstones of the controversial author's legacy. But since the book's publication in 1965, critics have continued to attack Capote's methods, such as his alleged use of imagination instead of fact in writing portions of this nonfiction work.
After 35 years, Capote's book In Cold Blood remains a seminal example of the strengths and weaknesses of literary journalism. This paper reviews the historical response to In Cold Blood from biographers, critics, literary journalism historians and contemporaries. Using these writings and analyses, excerpts of In Cold Blood, and original research, this paper evaluates Capote's work of literary journalism based on two criteria:
1) artistic merit (creativity) and 2) journalistic merit (credibility).
These criteria are based on what Talese and Lounsberry discuss as objectives of literary journalism (i.e., literature of reality): "... should have the texture, the rhythm, the pacing, the coloring, and the drama of a work of art, yet it should hold to the standard of verifiable truth."[3]
Artistic Merit
Truman Capote, who began his literary career as a novelist and playwright, turned to journalistic writing in November 1959 after reading of the brutal killing of a Kansas family. He would spend more than five years researching, reporting and writing his "nonfiction novel" on the murders and their aftermath. He decided to write In Cold Blood because he believed that "journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art form."[4] Capote further claimed that to be a "good creative reporter, you have to be a very good fiction writer."[5]
According to biographer Clarke:
Truman had long maintained that nonfiction could be both as artful and as compelling as fiction. In his opinion the reason it was not-that it was generally considered a lesser class of writing-was that it was most often written by journalists who were not equipped to exploit it. Only a writer 'completely in control of fictional techniques' could elevate it to the status of art.[6]
Literary journalism historian Weber wrote that In Cold Blood was Capote's "experiment to see if the novel's emotional reach could be built on the foundation of a wholly factual account."[7] Weber discussed the concept of artistic merit or what makes Capote's work of journalism-literary journalism-when he noted that the author "through selection, arrangement, emphasis, and other literary devices, discovers some meaning or theme in his factual materials. The difference is the difference between journalism and art."[8]
Weber grounded his analysis of Capote in the nonfiction world where the author must remain true to documentary fact. But he stated that Capote sought "literature's truth, that sense of being drawn into a world of meaning and inner coherence."[9]
Literary journalism historian Berner wrote that Capote succeeded in his artistic quest, stating that the author "... deserves credit for helping elevate the place of nonfiction in the world of literature."[10]
Since the book's publication in 1965, several writers, reviewers and officials involved in the murder case have had high praise for Capote's work:
ù In September 1965, when the first installment of In Cold Blood was published in The New Yorker, Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Harold Nye wrote to Capote:
It's tremendous. Now I can appreciate the painstaking effort you have given to this little murder scene in Kansas. I found myself caught in the web of the story to the point that I couldn't stop to eat. At the end of part one, I told the wife, 'By God, the old boy has really got something here.'[11]
ù "In Cold Blood is a masterpiece," proclaimed Conrad Knickerbocker in The New York Times Book Review, January 14, 1966.[12]
ù Jimmy Breslin, columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, wrote on January 19, 1966:
The important thing is (it) could affect the type of words on pages you could be reading for a while. This Capote steps in with flat, objective, terrible realism. And suddenly there is nothing else you want to read.[13]
ù On January 31, 1966, Hilton Kramer in The New Leader praised Capote's "prose rhythm of a superior reporter," noting that, "Much of Capote's skill has gone into rendering this moral contrast of the victims and their executioners with exceptional pictorial vividness."[14]
ù In her review in Harper's Magazine, February 1966, author Rebecca West wrote, "Nothing but blessing can flow from Mr. Capote's grave and reverent book."[15]
ù On February 3, 1966, in The New York Review of Books, F.W. Dupee wrote that, "In Cold Blood is the best documentary account of an American crime ever written."[16]
ù George Garrett wrote in the February 1966 issue of The Hollins Critic, "Using his gifts for a controlled and charged language and a beautiful style to advantage, he has arranged the telling, the sequence of related events, in such a way that the reader is compelled to share the whole urgent experience."[17]
ù "Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is a cross between a detective story and a crime documentary...The emphasis is on the fact, not on the fiction, on the recreation, not creation," wrote William Phillips in a May 1966 article in Commentary.[18]
ù In Malin's 1968 collection Truman Capote's In Cold Blood:
A Critical Handbook, reviewer David Galloway wrote:
... the book which grows from years of painstaking research is a social document of undeniable significance. It is also a major work of literature in its own right, for only a writer of exceptional talent could so skillfully have directed our attention to the larger issues which rest behind the 'facts' of the case.[19]
ù Literary journalist Gay Talese, in a January/February 1973 Writer's Digest interview by John Brady, classified Capote as: "Really a skilled reporter, a very fine reporter. And an awfully good writer."[20]
ù John Knowles wrote in the April 1988 issue of Esquire : "Capote's book held a mirror to a real-life happening and reflected it to readers all over the world."; "... the economy, grace, precision use, and shapeliness of the book broke into a new kind of higher journalism."[21]
ù On March 1, 1999, In Cold Blood was ranked 22nd on New York University journalism department's list of the top 100 works of journalism in the United States in the 20th century.[22]
Literary Journalistic Techniques
In writing In Cold Blood, Capote demonstrated his talent for
the craft of narrative nonfiction writing through his use of several literary journalistic techniques: immersion/saturation reporting, extended dialogue/
internal monologue, characterization, description, metaphor/simile, imagery/symbolism/theme, dramatization (scenes, parallel narratives, transitions), irony/foreshadowing/flashbacks and point of view.
Capote's primary fact-gathering strategy was immersion and saturation reporting to research the crime and its aftermath, spending more than five years and recording 6,000 pages of notes, including correspon-dence, court records, extended interviews, newspaper/magazine accounts, diary entries and weather reports.[23]
Whether or not Capote succeeded in writing a nonfiction novel or a journalistic account that achieved artistic (literary) merit is still being debated in 2000. What is part of the historical record is Capote's dedication to the use of saturation reporting techniques in researching the book. Capote spoke of such a commitment in a 1966 interview with George Plimpton, citing the enormous amount of work involved and stating that the relationship of the author and his sources is a "full 24-hour-a-day job":
Even when I wasn't working on the book, I was somehow involved with all the characters in it-with their personal lives, writing six or seven letters a day, taken up with their problems, a complete involvement. It's extraordinarily difficult and consuming, but for a writer who tries, doing it all the way down the line, the result can be a unique and exciting form of writing.[24]
Capote's information gathering was documented by individuals directly connected with the case and cited by reviewers:
ù Lead investigator Al Dewey recalled that:
At the press tables, from the opening gavel and for every minute of the trial thereafter, sat Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee furiously taking notes. It was at the trial that Capote, along with the public and the press, heard for the first time how the murders were committed.[25]
ù In his book review for the New York Herald Tribune, Maurice Dolbier wrote that Capote had recorded "this American tragedy in such depth and detail that one might imagine he had been given access to the books of the Recording Angel."[26]
ù Author Kenneth Reed observed how Capote used his fact gathering for artistic purposes: "The use of detail helped Capote give the facts, disclosing them not in a straight forward newspaper fashion but as a creative artist selecting details, printing them, and reiterating them as much as a painter repeats a line or color for meaning or intensity."[27]
In his reporting Capote relied on in-depth interviews to generate
a) extended dialogue, b) internal monologue and anecdotal information from his sources:
a) 'The only sure thing is every one of them has got to go.'
'Seems like a lot of it. To be so sure about.'
'Ain't that what I promised you, honey-plenty of hair on them- those walls?'[28]
b) Dick dropped the binoculars into a leather case, a luxurious
receptacle initialed H.W.C. He was annoyed. Annoyed as hell. Why the hell couldn't Perry shut up?[29]
The use of extended dialogue and internal monologue, techniques possible in nonfiction "only through the most searching forms of reporting," arguably enhanced the book's dramatic intensity.[30]
Capote is credited with presenting in-depth characterization of the two killers, their victims, criminal investigators, and selected townspeople. In literary journalism, characterization transcends the conventions of traditional (deadline-driven) reporting with portrayals of people with psychological depth.[31] Wolfe described this technique as "... giving the full objective description, plus something that readers had always had to go to novels and short stories for: namely, the subjective and emotional life of the characters."[32]
According to Hollowell, Capote's greatest accomplishment was his characterization of the murderer Perry Smith. Hollowell noted that Capote's concern for character analysis and moral ambiguity, in a novelistic fashion, dominated In Cold Blood.[33]
The lead investigator on the Clutter murder case agreed with Hollowell's opinion and provided insight into Capote's reporting methods. Alvin (Al) Dewey wrote that after the trial, Capote obtained the permission of the defense attorneys to talk to Smith and Hickock. He gained the killers confidence completely, and they talked to him often and freely. Dewey said that from these interviews, Capote gleaned the facts and insights, the details and tales, that eventually made up a large part of his book. Dewey
added, "Of the many characters in Capote's story of the murder case, none were more finely drawn than Smith and Hickock."[34]
Literary journalism historians Kerrane and Yagoda similarly praised Capote's portrayal of Perry (Smith) and Dick (Hickock). They stated that, "For a journalist to re-create events he did not witness requires a prodigious amount of reporting, and Capote could not have written In Cold Blood had he not met the two men after their capture, obtained their sympathy and cooperation, and interviewed them for hour after hour."[35]
Yet Kerrane and Yagoda also questioned Capote's credibility:
Even so, novelistic re-creation raises new issues of accuracy. In traditional journalism, unless an event is witnessed by a reporter, every fact is reflexively attributed to a source. Here, Capote implicitly pledges, for example, that Dick told a particular joke in certain particular words. It is a pledge he cannot back up.[36]
Kerrane and Yagoda concluded their commentary on In Cold Blood by arguably giving Capote the benefit of the doubt regarding his veracity as a reporter/author:
Re-creating events is now a journalistic convention, sometimes practiced very honorably, sometimes less so. Dialogue remains sticky for all: how can any witness remember exactly what was said years, months, or even days before? The questions and concerns surrounding the technique will not be soon resolved, but it is indisputable that Capote, with his novelist's ear, heard what his characters could have said and transcribed it more faithfully than any journalist before or since.[37]
Capote employed evocative description throughout his true-crime book. For example, he wrote that Herb Clutter's teeth were "unstained and strong enough to shatter walnuts."[38] He described one of the killers (Dick Hickock) as "... the left eye being truly serpentine, with a venomous, sickly-blue squint...."[39] He portrayed Mrs. Sadie Truitt, the town's mail messenger, as "A stocky, weathered widow who wears babushka bandannas and cowboy boots."[40]
Distinctive literary journalistic description lies in the inclusion of details. To illustrate this, two traditional journalistic descriptions of Dick Hickock's execution were contrasted with a literary journalistic treatment.[41]
1) Traditional: The April 14, 1965, issue of The New York Times described the execution as follows:
The trap was sprung on Hickock at 1:19 a.m. in the corner of a dingy warehouse.
2) Traditional: The November 10, 1984, tabloid issue of the Garden City (Kan.) Telegram wrote that:
... the executioner pulled the lever which opened the trap door below Hickock's feet. He dropped to his death...the straps about his body and the rope around his neck were cut. With face still masked, he was placed on a stretcher, covered with a sheet and carried off in a black hearse.
These descriptions were then compared with Capote's use of descriptive details in In Cold Blood :
3) Literary:
The trap door was opened, and Hickock hung for all to see a full twenty minutes...A hearse, its blazing headlights beaded with the rain, drove into the warehouse, and the body, placed on a litter and shrouded under a blanket, was carried to the hearse and out into the night.[42]
In addition to distinctive detail, Capote's used such fictional devices as metaphor and simile. He described Perry Smith's childhood metaphorically: "They [he and his siblings] shared a doom against which virtue was no defense."[43] Smith was later characterized "as lonely and inappropriate as a sea gull in a wheat field."[44]
Imagery, symbolism and theme were also integral to the storytelling
of In Cold Blood. Consider the image (and mood) conveyed in the book's opening and closing:
Opening:
The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.'[45]
Closing:
... he [Dewey] walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.[46]
Weber noted the evocative quality of the book's ending:
... drawing us out of the account of waves of feeling for both the Clutters and the killers, for lives unrealized and cut short, and leaving us with an evocation of the serene order of the landscape, an order that has been violated yet persists, somehow larger and more enduring than man's evil acts.[47]
In the March 18, 1966, issue of The Spectator, Tanner cited Capote's intention to achieve "mythic significance" of his factual account, as he described the symbolism of In Cold Blood: "For here is a 'true' parable of the outlaw against the community; the roving life of random impulse cutting across the stable respectability of continuous ambition; the gangster versus the family man...the terrible meeting of the cursed and blessed of America."[48]
In 1968, Galloway similarly focused on Capote's symbolic images:
"...the Clutters' way of life was an anachronism, but a genial and alluring one-the small but influential seed of reality at the heart of the American dream."[49]
Galloway praised Capote's artistic use of theme when he wrote, "Like all great works of literature, the implication of In Cold Blood,
and the richness of its narrative technique, defy any simple reduction into categories, but one unifying theme-the metamorphosis of dream into nightmare-returns again and again to haunt the reader's imagination."[50]
In Cold Blood has been credited for its dramatization (e.g., scenes, parallel narratives, transitions). In 1988 Clarke wrote:
Employing the skills he had learned as a screenwriter, he presents his main protagonists in short, cinematic scenes: the Clutters, unsuspectingly awaiting their fate in the shadows of those dignified grain elevators, and their killers, racing across Kansas to meet them, Nemesis in a black Chevrolet...Together, victims and killers are America in microcosm-light and dark, goodness and evil.[51]
In 1980 Weber focused on Capote's "skilled use of parallel narratives," a technique common to literature. He noted how in the book two stories were always being told: "first the stories of the killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, set against those of the murdered Clutters, later Dick and Perry set against the forces of law and order."[52]
In 1996, authors Talese and Lounsberry analyzed another of Capote's dramatic narrative devices-"artful transitions [that] bring unity to a narrative, which is, in reality, jumping back and forth between two sets of characters and varying geographical locales.":
After introducing 'the master of River Valley Farm, Herbert William Clutter' [eating an apple and glass of milk] in his first narrative sequence, Capote smoothly segues to present Mr. Clutter's murderer with the intriguing three-word opening phrase: 'Like Mr. Clutter, the young man breakfasting in a cafe called the Little Jewel never drank coffee.' He uses sounds (a car's honking, a brother calling) to segue smoothly back from the murderers to introduce his heroine, sixteen-year-old Nancy Clutter.[53]
Capote utilized other literary devices in his book, including irony, foreshadowing and flashbacks. It is ironic that Herb Clutter signed a new life insurance policy the afternoon before his murder, and that a prisoner's (Floyd Wells) lie about money in a safe led Hickock and Smith to their fateful destination. Perhaps the ultimate irony is Capote's allegation that the murders themselves were the result of a psychological accident (e.g.,
"Perry never meant to kill the Clutters at all. He had a brain explosion.")[54]; (e.g., "... the victims might as well have been killed by lightning.").[55]
In foreshadowing Nancy Clutter's demise, Capote wrote of "... the dress in which she was to be buried"[56] In telling Perry Smith's story, Capote often relied on flashbacks to his childhood to try to understand what may have led to the grisly murders years later: "... a final battle between the parents, a terrifying contest in which horsewhips and scalding water and kerosene lamps were used as weapons, had brought the marriage to a stop."[57]
Capote used a third-person, omniscient point of view in writing his nonfiction account of the Holcomb, Kan., murders. He deliberately kept himself out of the manuscript (as a character), and his point-of-view provided greater flexibility in conveying the thoughts and actions of several characters. According to Wolfe, Capote was employing "the technique of presenting every scene to the reader through the eyes of a particular character, giving the reader the feeling of being inside the character's mind and experiencing the emotional reality of the scene...."[58]
In assessing the cumulative impact of Capote's literary journalistic techniques on achieving artistic merit, Galloway wrote that the published pages of his work did not represent a simple condensation or summary of thousands of pages of notes and transcripts. He focused on Capote's careful and artful selection of details, calculated to evoke a variety of moods, to establish character, to produce suspense, and to convey a number of intricately related themes. Galloway wrote that it was in the selection of such details and in their arrangement that the technique of the novelist was vividly apparent.
He commented on the "gaps in the narrative which have clearly been filled out of the writer's own imagination." But he said these gaps were "filled (despite the occasional moment of self-indulgent prose) in such a way as to grow organically out of the facts themselves, or to give at least the crucial appearance of doing so." Galloway's praised the "immediacy and involvement" of In Cold Blood as evidence of the "shaping intelligence of a sensitive and experienced novelist."[59]
Journalistic Merit
Credibility Issues
Capote's In Cold Blood has been scrutinized and criticized on several issues related to journalistic merit, including his alleged and/or documented fact changing; invention of scenes; recreated dialogue; reliance on memorization (versus tape recording or note-taking); and an overly sympathetic portrayal of Perry Smith.
Some who have praised In Cold Blood's creativity have questioned its credibility. This dualistic perspective was illustrated by Dupee in his 1966 review:
But if In Cold Blood deserves highest marks among American crime histories, it also raises certain questions. What, more of less, is the narrative intended to be; and in what spirit are we supposed to take it? While the book 'reads' like excellent fiction, it purports to be strictly factual and thoroughly documented. But the documentation is, for the most part, suppressed in the text-presumably in order to supply the narrative with a surface of persuasive immediacy and impenetrable omniscience.[60]
Dupee noted that Capote's claims to veracity were not set forth in any detail in his book. They were merely asserted in a brief introductory paragraph wherein his indebtedness to several authorities ranging from the Kansas police to William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, was acknowledged. Dupee questioned the verifiability of the book's "numerous angles, including Mrs. Clutter's dream speech and the social portrait of Holcomb." He added, "To ask such questions of a book that is otherwise so praiseworthy may be captious; but to praise without asking is foolish."[61]
Capote's assertions regarding the veracity of In Cold Blood were provocative to say the least. In his 1966 interview with Plimpton, Capote discussed how he had trained himself to transcribe conversations without using a tape recorder or note-taking, which he said "artificializes the atmosphere of an interview, or a scene-in-progress." Capote said he could "get within 95 percent of absolute accuracy, which is as close as you need."[62]
Capote would later reassert his claims with interviewer Grobel:
I didn't choose that subject because of any great interest in it. It was because I wanted to write what I called a nonfiction novel-a book that would read exactly like a novel except that every word of it would be absolutely true.[63]
Weber addressed the critical (and ethical) use of fact in works of literary journalism (e.g., In Cold Blood) when he wrote:
The basic critical problem with literary nonfiction cast in the form of fiction is always credibility. Because such work reconstructs events instead of describing them and because it draws on a variety of techniques associated with fiction-dialogue, point of view, interior monologue, evocative detail-it invariably raises questions about the writer's commitment to fact.[64]
Capote's statements about the factual accuracy of his work concerned at least one prominent editor, challenged journalistic "investigators" who set out to debunk Capote's claims, and raised the ire of critics who dismissed Capote's self-proclaimed artistic achievements.
In researching his history of The New Yorker (About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made), Yagoda examined the original galley proofs on which New Yorker editor William Shawn read In Cold Blood for the first time:
In the first section, where Capote is describing what took place in the Clutter house the day of the murders, Shawn repeatedly wrote in the margin, 'How know? d[iscuss] w/author.' I don't know if he did ever discuss this with Capote, but I can say that when the piece appeared in the magazine and then as a book, there were virtually no changes from that original galley.[65]
Berner noted that Shawn reportedly said that he had second thoughts later and "almost wished he hadn't published it," although when he died The New York Times attributed him with editorial acumen for having done so.[66]
The New Yorker and other publications employ fact checkers who verify research and review manuscripts before publication. Clarke wrote about a trip Capote made back to Kansas in October 1964 with New Yorker fact checker Sandy Campbell. Campbell noted in his diary that Alvin (Al) Dewey and Capote were friends; Capote called Alvin "Pappy" and Alvin had nicknamed Capote "Coach." Campbell, who had been assigned at Truman's request to check the accuracy of In Cold Blood, said that that he had worked with many New Yorker writers, including A.J. Liebling, Richard Rovere and Lillian Ross, but "Truman was the most accurate."[67]
When the book was published in The New Yorker in fall 1965, each part [of the four serialized issues of In Cold Blood] contained this editor's note: "All quotations in this article are taken either from official records or from conversations, transcribed verbatim, between the author and the principals."[68]
Clarke commented on Capote's liberal (novelistic) attitude that raised concerns about his true commitment to factual accuracy: "Yet within those boundaries, he believed that there was far more latitude than other writers had never realized, freedom to juxtapose events for dramatic effect, to re-create long conversations, even to peer inside the heads of his characters and tell what they were thinking."[69]
In 1966 Tanner wrote:
I am not saying that Capote has twisted the facts so that life appears as a Capote novel. But tampering there has been, and a subtle exploitation or highlighting of ghastly or pathetic effects which leaves me feeling a little uneasy about the enormous appeal of this book.[70]
Garrett, who first reviewed In Cold Blood in 1966, revisited the book in 1996 and addressed some of Capote's alleged manipulations and misrepresentations:
... when pictures of the people involved appeared in the magazines, it was clear that Capote's descriptions and judgments were subjective, literary. The people did not look much like the people he described.
Later it turned out that they did not do or say all the things he attributed to them; and some things neither he nor anyone else could have known.[71]
Perhaps no author before or since has so thoroughly challenged the factual accuracy of In Cold Blood as Phillip K. Tompkins did in his June 1966 article in Esquire ("In Cold Fact" with subhead: "We might ask of the nonfiction novel that it contain no fiction. And if it does, why does it?").[72]
Tompkins discussed several inaccuracies, inventions or mis-representations in the book. He cited a Kansas City Times article of January 27, 1966, by Robert Pearman, which discussed such events as the sale of Nancy Clutter's horse, Babe. Capote had written the auction scene as very melancholy with the horse bought for $75 by a Mennonite farmer, who planned on using it for a plow horse. In reality, the bidding was quite lively, and the buyer-the father of the postmaster-paid $182.50. He had no plans for using it as a plow horse. Instead Babe was eventually used by the YMCA to teach kids to ride. Also, in the Pearman story, according to Nancy Clutter's boyfriend, Robert (Bobby) Rupp, Capote exaggerated about him being a star basketball player and about the frequency which he visited the Clutter home when he was dating Nancy.[73]
Tompkins was concerned about the net effect of such errors:
If the discrepancies in Capote's account were all as minor as these,
one might easily dismiss them as quibbles. They lead, however, into questions of greater import-questions of how much license a purportedly objective reporter can be permitted in selecting and interpreting one set of facts as opposed to another equally or even more convincing set of facts.[74]
Tompkins proceeded to dig deeper into Capote's account of key developments in the book, such as Perry Smith's confession. He stated that local newspaper reports of Al Dewey's testimony at the trial did not conform with Capote's version of the contents of the confession. Further,
Dewey had Smith committing the murder (of Herb Clutter) with full consciousness and intent. This description of Smith's mental state contradicted Capote's version, which he characterized as a random act of violence-a "brain explosion."
In his analysis, Tompkins allows for the possibility that because Capote had as many as 200 or more interviews with the killers while they were on death row, he may have been able to gather more in-depth information about Smith's mental state than Dewey ever could.[75]
But Capote's portrayal of Perry Smith was further challenged by Tompkins, who reported that the Undersheriff Meier's wife, whose kitchen was adjacent to Smith's cell when he was housed in the Garden City (Kan.)
County Jail, denied ever hearing Smith utter the words, "I'm embraced by shame," as Capote described in his book.[76]
Perhaps a more important challenge to a true characterization of Smith occurs at the time of his execution. The account provided by Bill Brown, editor of the Garden City Telegram, contradicts Capote's recording of Smith's final words ("But I do. I apologize."). According to the Tompkins article:
He (Brown) stood four feet from Smith when these (last) words were spoken (Capote was unable to watch; he walked away, out of earshot).
Brown took notes. He immediately compared his notes with those of the wire-service representatives standing on either side of him-they were identical...Brown is today convinced that Smith did not apologize.[77]
Tompkins concluded that Capote, the novelist, prevailed over
Capote, the journalist, in the writing of In Cold Blood. ("Art triumphs over reality, fiction over nonfiction.") Tompkins said that instead of premeditated murder performed in cold blood, Capote substituted unpremeditated murder performed in a fit of insanity.
He said that by imparting conscience and compassion to Perry, Capote was able to convey qualities of inner sensitivity, poetry and a final posture of contrition in his hero. ("The killer cries. He asks to have his hand held. He says, 'I'm embraced by shame.' He apologizes...")
Tompkins wrote that, "Perhaps we should not have expected anything different from Capote." He then cited Capote's good friend [and research assistant] Harper Lee, who had told Newsweek: "He [Capote] knows what he wants and he keeps himself straight. And if it's not the way he likes it, he'll arrange it so it is."[78]
Tompkins concluded that Capote had made both a "tactical and moral error" by insisting that "every word" of his book was true, making himself vulnerable to those readers (and journalists) willing to challenge such a bold, sweeping claim.[79]
Fourteen years later, Weber commented on Tompkins critique, stating that his point was that the artistic intentions of the book caused Capote to shape the account unconsciously in a way that called into question its factual authority. He said that Tompkins faulted Capote on several points, including some crucial details of the murder scene, but the weight of his criticism came down on Capote's sympathetic portrayal of Perry Smith as against Tompkins' conclusion that Perry was an "obscene, semiliterate and cold-blooded killer."[80]
According to Clarke, perhaps the most brazen of Capote's "inventions" was the book's final scene between Al Dewey and Susan Kidwell at Nancy Clutter's gravesite. Clarke said that although the "newspaper sleuths did not know it-Alvin and Marie Dewey had been careful not to contradict Capote."
Clarke also provided fascinating insights into the book's final days when Capote, "following his usual custom," had anguished over his ending. Clarke wrote that Capote suffered so much from indecision that his writing hand froze and he was forced to compose on a typewriter. Capote debated whether to end the book with the executions or conclude with a happier scene? The author of In Cold Blood allegedly chose the latter scenario.
But since events had not provided him with a happy scene, he was forced to make one up: a chance, springtime encounter of Alvin Dewey Susan Kidwell, Nancy Clutter's best friend, in the tree-shaded Garden City cemetery, an oasis of green in that dry country. The Clutters are buried there, and so is Judge Tate, who sentenced their killers.
Susan is not completing the college that she and Nancy had planned to attend together, Nancy's boyfriend (Robert Rupp) has recently married, and Alvin's [Dewey] older son, who was just a boy on that murderous night, is preparing to enter college himself. The message is clear: Life continues even amidst death. It is almost a duplicate of the ending of The Grass Harp, which brings together Judge Cool and young Collin Fenwick in a similar reunion in a cemetery. But what works in The Grass Harp, which is a kind of fantasy, works less well in a book of uncompromising realism like In Cold Blood, and that nostalgic meeting in the graveyard verges on the trite and sentimental, as several otherwise admiring critics obligingly pointed out.[81]
Clarke's "smoking gun" statement by Capote is revealing of the author's novelistic intentions regarding his ending:
'I could probably have done without that last part, which brings everything to rest,' Truman admitted. 'I was criticized a lot for it. People thought I should have ended with the hangings, that awful last scene. But I felt I had to return to the town, to bring everything back full circle, to
end with peace.'[82]
In his article "The Clutter Case," which appeared in the Garden City Telegram on November 10, 1984, Alvin Dewey discussed Capote and the writing of In Cold Blood:
I came off bigger and better than life. Capote used me, because I coordinated the investigation, as a central figure ... maybe a hero. Often I was the spokesman who carried his story. Many of the words weren't mine, but the messages they imparted were correct enough.
Dewey explained how he and his wife had befriended Capote during the writing of the book:
The good part was that, at Capote's invitations, my wife and I had several interesting trips and met a lot of famous people. We went to
New York City, Washington, D.C., and Palm Springs and were entertained royally by him and his celebrity friends.
When asked if the book gave an accurate account of the case, Dewey responded in the article:
Yes. It was based on facts. Capote observed first hand the trial, the prisoners on death row and the execution. He did a prodigious number of interviews and a lot of research. Out of the thousands of facts he worked with, he reported practically all of them accurately.
However, Dewey did challenge Capote on "a couple of things." He said he would always believe the killings happened the way Smith first confessed-that he killed Mr. Clutter and Kenyon and that Hickock killed Mrs. Clutter and Nancy. His impression was that Capote led readers to believe Smith killed them all. Dewey was firm in discussing something that Capote "definitely got wrong":
_ that I closed my eyes when the murderers were hanged. I didn't. I watched the whole thing. I had worked hard to get them to the gallows and I was quite prepared to see them swing.[83]
Another Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) agent who challenged
Capote's presentation of the "facts" of the executions was Harold Nye. He
said Capote watched Hickock being executed, but when Smith came in, Capote "fell apart," ran out of the building and would not witness Smith's execution.[84]
Nye's account contradicted Capote's own words in a letter to Donald Cullivan: "I was there. I stayed with Perry to the end."[85]
Harold Nye said he "got into trouble" with Capote when the author
sent Nye book galleys to approve. The material concerned Nye's trip to Las Vegas to get evidence on the killers. Nye said Capote's account was incorrect:
It was a fiction thing, and being a young officer, I took offense at the fact that he didn't tell the truth. So I refused to approve them... Accuracy was not his point. I took offense that he was changing the facts. He wasn't writing about our investigation... It was probably an insignificant thing, except I was under the impression that the book was going to be factual, and it was not; it was a fiction book.[86]
According to Clarke, Capote's "fictional" techniques went beyond fact changing. He allegedly attempted to mislead Perry Smith about the title of the book and its timetable for completion:
Truman danced around the subject, pretending, until the day they were executed, that he was barely half-done and, in fact, might never finish. When they discovered his title-which said, in three words, that they had planned the murders-Truman lied and informed them they were wrong. But they knew better, and Perry indignantly told him so: 'I've been told that the book is to be coming off the press and to be sold after our executions. And that book IS entitled In Cold Blood. Whose fibbing?? Someone is, that's apparent.'[87]
In 1980 Weber tried to put challenges to Capote's veracity, such as those brought by Tompkins, in a broader literary context:
Such inaccuracy, if it exists, is of course devastating. If Capote has
distorted Perry's character, the book is fatally weakened as a 'true account.' But most readers know nothing of the Clutter murders beyond what Capote relates and so are in no position to measure the book as Tompkins does. Even if they could, such detective work might seem of small importance for the book patently reaches beyond its factual grounding to grasp the reader in the manner of the novel. It seeks to be, finally, a work of the literary imagination, and it is on this level that the reader can best measure it.[88]
In 1968 Friedman similarly had argued that despite Tompkins' convincing arguments and claims of (Capote's) unreliability, "we must still believe in the essential authenticity and integrity of Capote's account."[89]
But Friedman's conclusion and Weber's "literary" defense of Capote would not have likely swayed Kauffmann, who wrote in his 1966 review:
It is ridiculous in judgment and debasing to call this book literature. Are we so bankrupt, so avid for novelty that merely because a famous writer produces an amplified magazine crime-feature, the result is automatically elevated to serious literature just as Andy Warhol, by painting a soup-carton, has allegedly elevated it to art?[90]
Two decades later, Clarke also challenged Capote's claims of "inventing" a new art form-the nonfiction novel:
In Cold Blood is a remarkable book, but it not a new art form. Nor was he the first to dress up facts in the colors of fiction. Although literary historians could refer to examples as far back as the seventeenth century,
there were several of more recent vintage, including John Hersey's Hiroshima, Rebecca West's The Meaning of Treason, Lillian Ross's pieces for The New Yorker, and Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day.[91]
In discussing historical precedents in literary journalism, Clarke could have also cited the nonfiction works of such authors as Swift (17th century); Defoe (18th); Dickens, Twain and Crane (19th); and London, Orwell and Hemingway (20th).
Conclusion
Capote's Legacy
When considering Capote's legacy, this paper contends that an examination of the impact of In Cold Blood on its author, the people of Holcomb, Kansas, and other literary journalists is warranted.
Clarke noted that Capote's life was dramatically altered by the writing and publication of In Cold Blood:
... he was no longer able to summon the energy to perform that magic act (i.e., using his imagination to manufacture his happiness). Nostalgia descended into sorrow, and to those who knew him well he seemed to be in perpetual mourning, overwhelmed by a sense of loss that was no less keen because he could not say precisely what it was that had been taken from him.[92]
According to Al Dewey and Robert Rupp, Capote's book has had a lasting effect on the residents of Holcomb, Kansas. In his 1984 Garden City Telegram article, Dewey wrote:
Many people had and still have bad feelings about the book.
They felt and still feel, and sincerely I'm sure, that it capitalized on the
tragedy of the Clutters and the grief of this community, profaning the memory of a good family and besmirching the image of where they lived.[93]
These comments about "bad feelings" of some of the townspeople were supported during a September 14, 1999, telephone interview with
Robert Rupp, who spoke about Capote, In Cold Blood, and how the book changed his life:
I have no intention of ever reading it. I didn't think too much of Truman Capote, never did care too much for the guy. He wasn't all that well liked in Holcomb, Kansas. It's unbelievable at the calls I get, this many years later. All hours of the night. Day after day, after day. (personal communication, September 14, 1999)
In 1966 author Dan Wakefield was arguably prophetic in his prediction of the impact of Capote's book on future literary journalists.
In an article in Atlantic magazine, Wakefield said he believed Capote
did as "honest and skillful a job as possible in his re-creation," although he remained skeptical of the "journalistic validity of such re-creation." But
Wakefield's ongoing concerns were of:
... the thought of the inevitable legions of less skillful and less scrupulous imitators of Capote's 'new form.' They will soon be upon us, wave on wave.[94]
Wakefield's concerns about the future of literary journalism's integrity seem remarkably relevant decades later when reading author John Berendt's comments on the writing of his nonfiction best-seller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil:
I did what any nonfiction writer does, even if they won't admit it-I sort of filled things in. Your research only goes so far, so you have to sort of smooth the edges. I never did anything in my book that was out of character-and I always checked with the characters [except dead ones!]
about what I was doing. I think more was made of the liberties I took than needed to be. All the events were true and all the characters real.[95]
Finally and ironically, one of Capote's sternest critics, Phillip K. Tompkins may have also been correct when in 1966 he predicted Capote's legacy as the author of In Cold Blood:
Future literary historians and scholars will undoubtedly place Capote's discrepancies of fact as well as his pretensions and rationalizations in perspective, and they will join with the present and future public in enjoying the work for its own sake. 'Time ...' as Auden wrote, 'worships language and forgives Everyone by whom it lives ....'[96]
###
Endnotes
1. Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson, eds. The New Journalism (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 48.
2. Truman Capote. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences (New York: Random House, Inc., 1965).
3. Gay Talese and Barbara Lounsberry, eds. The Literature of Reality (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 31.
4. George Plimpton. Truman Capote: in which various friends, enemies, acquaintances, and detractors recall his turbulent career (New York: Nan Talese/Doubleday, 1997), p. 197.
5. Ronald Weber, ed. The Reporter as Artist: A Look at the New Journalism Controversy (New York: Hastings, 1974), p. 191.
6. Gerald Clarke. Capote: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), p. 356-57.
7. Ronald Weber. The Literature of Fact (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1980), p. 79.
8. Weber, 1980, p. 2.
9. Weber, 1980, p. 73.
10. R. Thomas Berner. The Literature of Journalism (State College: Strata
Publishing, 1999), p. 129.
11. Clarke, p. 361.
12. Clarke, p. 363.
13. Clarke, p. 365.
14. Irving Malin, ed. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: A critical handbook (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1968), p. 66-67.
15. Clarke, p. 364.
16. Malin, p. 70.
17. Malin, p. 82.
18. Malin, p. 103.
19. Malin, p. 162.
20. Weber, 1974, p. 103.
21. John Knowles. "Musings on a Chameleon," Esquire, August 1988,
p. 176.
22. New York University (1999, March 1) Web site. Available: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/journal/Dept_news/News_stories/990301_topjourn. htm)
23. Berner, p. 125.
24. Malin, p. 43.
25. Alvin Dewey. "The Clutter Case," Garden City (Kan.) Telegram, 10 November 1984, p. 8A.
26. Clarke, p. 364.
27. Kenneth T. Reed. Truman Capote (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1981), p. 43.
28. Truman Capote. In Cold Blood (New York: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1994), p. 37.
29. Capote, 1994, p. 108.
30. Wolfe & Johnson, p. 21.
31. Mark H. Mass‚. "Creative Nonfiction: Where Journalism and Storytelling Meet," The Writer, October 1995, p. 13.
32. Wolfe & Johnson, p. 21.
33. John Hollowell. Fact and Fiction (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1977), p. 75.
34. Dewey, p. 9A.
35. Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda, eds. The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism (New York: Scribner, 1997), p. 161.
36. Kerrane & Yagoda, p. 161.
37. Kerrane & Yagoda, p. 161.
38. Capote, 1994, p. 6.
39. Capote, 1994, p. 31.
40. Capote, 1994, p. 66.
41. Eric Tan. "Final J610 Paper," (Graduate seminar in "The New Journalism"), Unpublished paper, Ball State University, 10 December 1996, p. 2.
42. Capote, 1994, p. 339.
43. Capote, 1994, p. 185.
44. Capote, 1994, p. 272.
45. Capote, 1994, p. 3.
46. Capote, 1994, p. 343.
47. Weber, 1980, p. 78.
48. Malin, p. 99.
49. Malin, p. 158.
50. Malin, p. 162.
51. Clarke, p. 356.
52. Weber, 1980, p. 75.
53. Talese & Lounsberry, p. 94.
54. Malin, p. 36
55. Capote, 1994, p. 245.
56. Capote, 1994, p. 56.
57. Capote, 1994, p. 184.
58. Wolfe & Johnson, p. 53.
59. Malin, p. 155-56.
60. Malin, p. 70.
61. Malin, p. 70.
62. Malin, p. 31.
63. Lawrence Grobel. Conversations with Capote (New York: New American Library, 1985), p. 112.
64. Weber, 1980, p. 53.
65. Ben Yagoda, WriterL (on-line literary journalism list serve. Available: [log in to unmask]), 16 March 1998.
66. Berner, p. 119.
67. Clarke, p. 351.
68. Berner, p. 119.
69. Clarke, p. 357.
70. Malin, p. 102.
71. George Garrett. "Then and Now: In Cold Blood Revisited," The Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer 1996, p. 474.
72. Malin, p. 44.
73. Malin, p. 45-46.
74. Malin, p. 46.
75. Malin, p. 51.
76. Malin, p. 53.
77. Malin, p. 53-54.
78. Malin, p. 57-58.
79. Malin, p. 58.
80. Weber, 1980, p. 74.
81. Clarke, p. 358-59.
82. Clarke, p. 359.
83. Dewey, p. 11A.
84. Plimpton, p. 188.
85. Clarke, p. 355.
86. Plimpton, p. 175.
87. Clarke, p. 346.
88. Weber, 1980, p. 74-75.
89. Malin, p. 168.
90. Malin, p. 61.
91. Clarke, p. 359.
92. Clarke, p. 402.
93. Dewey, p. 12A.
94. Weber, 1974, p. 47.
95. John Berendt. The Charlotte Observer, 17 October 1999.
(Reported by Michael Weinstein, WriterL list serve, 19 October 1999.)
96. Malin, p. 58.
"Capote's Legacy: The Challenge of Creativity and Credibility in Literary Journalism"
Abstract:
Thirty-five years ago (1965), Truman Capote published his best-selling "nonfiction novel," In Cold Blood. The book has been both praised for its compelling writing and criticized for its inaccurate and misleading reporting. The legacy of Capote reflects the enduring challenge facing authors of literary journalism in producing creative and credible works. This paper examines Capote's historical contributions to the craft of narrative nonfiction writing and the critical response to In Cold Blood since the 1960s.
Mark H. Mass‚
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
765-285-8222
765-285-7997 (fax)
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Presented for competition in the Cultural and Critical Studies Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Annual Convention, Phoenix, AZ, August 2000
"Capote's Legacy: The Challenge of Creativity and Credibility in Literary Journalism"
By
Mark H. Mass‚
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
765-285-8222
765-285-7997 (fax)
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Presented for competition in the Cultural and Critical Studies Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Annual Convention, Phoenix, AZ, August 2000
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