In Cold Blood
Truman Capote does an awesome job of blending his rich metaphoric style of narrative and journalistic method to create a new literary form called “New Journalism”.
Normally a spoiler, but not in New Journalism as the inside cover tells exactly what happened “In the late 50’s a prominent Kansas farmer and his family (wife and two children) were murdered from a shotgun blast inches from their faces. A few years later two men were hanged for the crimes.” What follows is 300+ pages of the details spread over 4 chapters.
This is a good read which I can’t help but think was the precursor to all those CourtTV (or whatever that channel is called now) mini crime documentaries. It also brings up the dilemma of capital punishment. Not that Capote is necessarily on one side of the fence, it’s more that journalistically…it was a piece of the story…those on one side and those on the other.
This is the first book I’ve read from the library (that wasn’t homework) since I was a kid. I had completely forgotten how awesome a library is. I had been waiting on reading books like this until I had time to swing into a Border’s or Barnes & Noble’s…duh, the library has it for free.
Next up is Bob Woodward’s “Bush at War“…perhaps the trilogy. We’ll see.
