""As long as the people don't have to see it, they seem to be all for it"; if executions occurred "in the public square," Americans might stop doing them. Capote wasn't so sure. His hands laced together professorially, he murmured, in his baby-talk drawl, "Human nature is so peculiar that, really, millions of people would watch it and get some sort of vicarious sensation.""
"He was fascinated, as he later explained, by "the homicidal mentality," and felt confident that readers would share his interest. Lurid tales of real-life murders were a staple of pulp magazines. But Capote wanted to elevate this tawdry genre into art, using careful reporting, subtle characterization, and (in his own immodest explanation) his "20/20 eye for visual detail." He announced (with further immodesty) that "In Cold Blood" marked the advent of a new form, the "nonfiction novel," which employed "the techniques of fictional art but was nevertheless immaculately factual.""
Truman Capote traveled to Holcomb, Kansas, after reading a 1959 Times story about the random murders of Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their two children. He pursued the "homicidal mentality" through careful reporting and immersive investigation, aiming to elevate lurid murder stories into art with subtle characterization and detailed visual description. Capote began In Cold Blood as a four-part magazine series and proclaimed a new "nonfiction novel" form that used fictional techniques while remaining immaculately factual. He acknowledged inspiration from Lillian Ross and reflected on public appetite for violent spectacle and vicarious sensation.
Read at The New Yorker
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