In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood inspired me as a writer, as a preservationist of the truth. I remember the first time I read a book by Truman Capote. I was a junior in college taking a class that seemed like a reformatted version of a several classes that I had already taken. The teacher was charismatic though not exceptionally different from my other college professor. The topic of media and society had been ingrained into my skull and every day I sat in the classroom making the same points, talking about the same concepts.

At this time, I figured that non-fiction writing was basically textbook or an article in National Geographic or the New York Times magazine. The only reading I ever did was for class and these non-fiction works comprised most of my curriculum.

I read In Cold Blood in less than a day. The imagery and word choice inspired me. I found the truth powerful and compelling. But the words and the style in which the book was written allowed me to imagine my own truth of the incident. Like a novel, I had my own image of the boys who murdered and the friends who suffered. And though I may have imagined details that were left out in the novel, my characters were not much different than the people who actually filled those roles. This was a real account and the author spent many years building it.

I learned as much as I could as Capote as a person. I read bios of his life, of his brilliance, and of his oddities. The more I learned about Capote, the more I was overtaken by the power off his book and his innovation in the field of journalism and non-fiction.

I tend to be draw to revolutionaries who overcame great adversity to make change. Artist who suffered and endured out of passion or dedication. I believe that there is a certain selfishness that takes over when making art for passion. And in the case of Capote, he was trying to humanize demons partially because he was a victim but also because there were demons within himself.

For all of these reasons, I was thrilled to see a movie made about Capote and the period of his life when he was writing this historic novel.