We Read
  • |
  • Book & Author |
  • Book discussions|
  • Events |
  • Media|
  • Past Selections
June 2007 SELECTION:

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

For more information, contact Jan Kilker at Willoughby Library, 440.942.3200.

About In Cold Blood
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces.  There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.  As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and investigation that led to the capture, trial and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy.  In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

Reviews:
“…a tale of such power that moves not only around the country, but around the terrain of the human psyche and the heart.”  Publishers Weekly

“In Cold Blood has not lost it’s power to shock through its portrait of the violent invasion of small-town values of a vanished, innocent America.”  Library Journal

“In Cold Blood is a masterpiece---agonizing, terrible, possessed, proof that the times, so surfeited with disasters, are still capable of tragedy.”   New York Times Book Review

About Author Truman Capote
Throughout his career, Truman Capote remained one of America's most controversial and colorful authors, combining literary genius with a penchant for the glittering world of high society. Though he wrote only a handful of books, his prose styling was impeccable, and his insight into the psychology of human desire was extraordinary. His flamboyant and well-documented lifestyle has often overshadowed his gifts as a writer, but over time Capote’s works will outlive the celebrity.  Best known for his works, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, Capote pioneered a new literary genre, the Nonfiction Novel.  Most consider In Cold Blood his masterpiece.