I read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood my second semester of college. I was taking a class called "Murder" from an amazing professor. (Sure, he was arrogant but that's another post.) The class looked at reasons for, defenses of, and justifications related to murder. It's no wonder after I took this class I became a legal theory major. This book affected me the way only a handful of books have in my life. Hugo's Les Miserables and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird are two others that readily come to mind. But again, I'm wandering off topic. It's a story of a murder in Kansas in 1959. But it's not so much a "who dunnit" as a "why dunnit." I didn't know anything about Truman Capote when I first read In Cold Blood. I didn't know it was his last finished work. I didn't know that he had died as a result of years of alcoholism. And I didn't know how personally he took this non-fiction novel. But now I know. I just watched the movie "Capote" starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. If you have any doubts about his oscar win, you haven't seen this movie. He is amazing. He truly is Capote. You watch him go through the process of writing the book. It isn't sensational or glorifying the murders. It's a gut-wrenching portrayal of a man who slowly loses his soul trying to get the story he desires. Slowly, Capote descends into alcohol and you almost can't blame him. The movie brought me to tears. And if you haven't seen it, you should.
Nellbie Knits
