Book a ….., A book in a …..I Read a Book! Hurray!

Ok I admit it. I cannot hope to match Ragdoll’s virtuosity when it comes to the sheer volume of books she reads. But in my defense, I would note that I have been dealing with a new job this past year and am still working my way through A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Diana Gabaldon’s latest 1000+ page tome.

However, I did find time recently to read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Ragdoll lent it to me and it was a much needed break from the trials and tribulations of Jamie and Claire in the 1770’s.

In Cold Blood is a book that I think will remain in my personal Top Ten the rest of my days. I have rarely read a book so completely chilling yet enthralling. Ragdoll was right. It IS utterly brilliant in its omniscience. Capote’s a marvel in his use of evocative scene setting and the calculated relation of fact.

The book tells the story of the Clutter family who were brutally murdered in their Holcomb, Kansas home in 1959. Capote heartbreakingly brings the members of this family to life, even while writing a book that only exists due to their brutal deaths. But where the book is truly superlative is in its retelling of the investigation of the case and the motive [or apparent lack thereof] of Perry Smith and Richard Hickcock, the two killers.

It is a harrowing book to read, one that leaves you sympathetic and yet utterly disgusted by these two men. If you’ve seen the movie Capote, I can honestly say that it barely scratches the surface of In Cold Blood. But there is a wonderful moment in the film where Capote, who was regularly abandoned by his mother as a child, is speaking of Perry Smith and remarks “I feel as if we both grew up in the same house, except I went out the front door and he went out the back.”

How can two people go through horrendous abuse and/or neglect as children and come to live completely different lives? One is strengthened by the experience, determined to better themselves and their life, to survive. The other is utterly ruined by the experience and grows into the human version of a hurricane, wreaking havoc and destruction wherever he goes. Other people have the most caring parents in the world and still grow up to become monsters. This will forever be one of life's great quandries.

As silly as it sounds, I’m finding as I get older that I’m almost shocked by how much humanity never changes. Our current age has always struck me as particularly vicious and debauched. And yet, children have always been abused, murderers have always rampaged. This book utterly confirmed this with its absolute timelessness. It could have been published last week.

My view of anytime before I was born is ludricrously quaint. But think about it. For anyone of my generation who was born in the 1970’s, the 1950’s were a time of malt shops and poodle skirts, cool cars and drive ins. Smith’s recollections of his alcoholic mother sound like a transcript from Dr. Phil, but this was his life as a child in 1930’s America.

Capote’s work was simply the first serious modern exploration of his country’s unseemly underbelly. I can now understand how ground breaking this book was at the time. For it is a non-fiction book written in the style of a novel. In this day and age, we take books like The Perfect Storm and Shot In the Heart for granted. But all paths lead back to Capote.

Rembrandt and I were out picking up some lunch last Thursday and I asked him if he had seen the movie Capote. He said yes, and felt that it was awful the way Capote “used those poor criminals.” He stopped himself and said, “Well, not poor criminals but you know what I mean.”

I told Rembrandt if he’d read the book, he wouldn’t feel that way, but I saw what he was getting at. I can understand how writing such a book destroyed Capote. It would never have been published had Smith and Hickcock lived. In many ways, Capote’s need for validation and attention were every bit as voracious as Smith’s. Perhaps that is what he struggled with, that in his own way, he too had taken life to feed his own demons.

For as much as these men and their acts repulsed me, there was a part of me that wished I could go back in time and comfort the child that was Perry Smith. You can’t read In Cold Blood and not be left with the distinct impression that despite this world and its complications, some things are, and always have been, very simple. For it is sometimes true, that the only thing standing between a child and their future life in oblivion is for just one adult to demonstrate a singular concept to them: You matter.