Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins answers “I read Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' two...”

Sitharaam Jayakumar asked this question about In Cold Blood:

I read Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' two months back. It is only recently I have made a shift to non-fiction books. But for all practical purposes this book reads very much like fiction. I later googled and found that Bobby Rupp had never met Truman Capote. There is also a lot of criticism saying many facts have been misrepresented. So how much credence can be placed on the facts described in this book?

Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins Any non-fiction book about true events - whether it's a novelistic true crime book, like In Cold Blood, or a drier text with a standard non-fiction st…moreAny non-fiction book about true events - whether it's a novelistic true crime book, like In Cold Blood, or a drier text with a standard non-fiction structure - will face some level of criticism about accuracy. It's inevitable. Even the most merticulous research and careful transcription will somewhere, somehow, piss someone off - because we each have a unique understanding and recollection of the "truth" of a matter.

Sure, Capote probably took a few more creative liberties than was fair in the presentation of the story as non-fiction, but in my mind he did so in service of the art form. He wasn't a journalist looking to report the "truth", he was a creative writer looking to tell a story. I wouldn't rely on any one book as a single source of truth on any matter - reliability and accuracy comes through a corroboration of sources - so of course relying on In Cold Blood for a completely truthful and accurate description of the Clutter murders would be a mistake... but it's a great book, regardless ;) (less)

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