Book Review - In Cold Blood by Trumen Capote

Read April 2021.

"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed is the name of the Lord", the chaplain intoned, as the noose was fitted. Just past midnight on 14 April 1965. This was the result of a judgement by the court on Monday April 04, 1960 in the murder trial of Clutter family that took place in the night of 15 November 1959 in which to the response to the judge's call " gentlemen of the jury, have you reached your verdicts?" said " we the jury, find defendants, guilty in the murder of first degree, and the punishment is death.

Capital punishment has to date confused me. You take a life of someone legally, who has taken someone's life illegally? Or when a soldier kills someone it's a bravery and he is awarded but when someone else kills someone he goes to gallows. Besides there are innumerable cases when someone orders killings of hundreds and thousands of innocents and law fails to pronounce them guilty and on the contrary they become heroes of the society.

"IN COLD BLOOD" by Truman Capote, is a fictionalised story of the real life murder of four members family  in Halcomb, Kansas. Real life characters, real places, real events all merged with the novelist's imaginations and woven so perfectly well that you feel he was there at every place, every event, every meeting that took place between hundreds of characters who had witnessed or had a role in the entire drama. Author takes you around not just the small village but all over the country and beyond wherever the characters travel in order to stay away from the hands of law. The details of every principal character, their upbringing, their thought process and the reasoning behind that, is so fascinating that you can do nothing but applaud for the novelist. During the course, the crime investigation process and courtroom dramas and the life of convicts who wait this day to go to gallows, was essential part of the story and has been told in a manner only a master story teller can describe.

Truman Capote (1924-1984) was a post war American writer of international critical acclaim. I came to know of him while looking at someone's Facebook cover picture where he had pasted the title and my curiosity got me to order this book. It was a perfect deviation from the Indian history reading that had occupied me over the past several months. So much so that I am inclined to read all that has been written by him.. let's see what future has in store.