| Wow.
So, "In Cold Blood". I have to read it for school, and I gotta tell ya, it's pretty intense. I dunno if all y'all (haha) know what it's about, but basically: it's the nonfiction account of the Clutters, a family of 4: parents, two high school kids, who were all killed in Nov. 1959 in Kansas by two young men (one was 28, one in his 30s,) with a shotgun. The killers had no motive other than robbery, but they only found between $40 and $50 and one small portable radio in the house before they killed the entire family.
Truman Capote does an incredible job; the book reads like a novel. He weaves in the accounts of seemingly every townsperson in Holcomb, Kansas, (the town where the Clutters lived,) the detectives who tracked down Smith and Hickock, (the killers,) and most importantly, Smith and Hickock themselves.
It's amazing to read the thoughts and actions of these two men, both while they're on the run, and after they have been caught. The reader really begins to sympathize with these two men, who from the moment they are caught, know that they will die.
It's a pretty disturbing read, but a good one. I've always had conflicting feelings about the death penalty, (and still do,) but this book really puts a different spin on things. And I'm curious: what do all y'all think about it? |
