In cold blood (novel)

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The Clutter House, 2009

In Cold Blood (Original Title: In Cold Blood ) the title of 1965 (officially 1966) published novel by is Truman Capote and its film version from 1967. was the first German translation of the subtitles truth Proper account of a multiple murder and its consequences .

The book has been a literary sensation since it was preprinted in The New Yorker magazine and is the detailed reconstruction of the gruesome murders of the Clutter family of four on their property near Holcomb in West Kansas in November 1959. With the book, Truman Capote wanted a “non -fictional novel “, which should prove that a factual narration can be just as exciting as a sophisticated thriller. This made him a pioneer of a new genre , New Journalism .

action

The novel is about a true crime, the cold-blooded murder of a family respected by all. On November 15, 1959, 31-year-old Perry Edward Smith and 28-year-old Richard Eugene Hickock (called Dick), former inmates, break into the home of the wealthy Herbert W. Clutter ; they suspect several thousand dollars in a safe . When they only find about $ 40, they murder the Clutter couple and their son Kenyon and daughter Nancy. Nancy's friend, 17-year-old Bobby Rupp, escaped the carnage by chance because he left the house shortly before the murderers arrived.

Capote also incorporated the long history of the crime into his novel. In about 1948, Floyd Wells, a prison inmate, worked as a farm hand for a winter on the Clutters River Valley farm. He got to know Herbert Clutter as the nicest employer of his life, but fatally tells his cellmate Richard Hickock about the wealthy farmer and his family situation. What is well known in Holcomb , where the Clutters live, namely that Herbert Clutter, among other principles - he is a strict abstainer - also advocates the principle of never having large amounts of cash in the house, he does not pass on to Hickock. No sooner has Hickock heard of the Clutters than he begins to fantasize about killing the family and gives his cellmate a detailed picture of how to proceed. Therefore, when this former farm worker hears about the Clutter murder on the radio, he immediately knows who one of the two perpetrators must be: Richard Hickock, who made the acquaintance of his future accomplice, Perry Edward Smith, also in prison.

Unlike Hickock, who has a relatively normal history, Smith faced violence and crime from childhood. His mother, the Indian rodeo rider Florence Buckskin, begins to drink and leaves his father Tex John Smith after numerous quarrels and a miserable wandering life. The children soon end up in homes, where Smith , the bed-wetter, is sadistically tortured, he says. He later moves around with his father, a sideways man of Irish descent who likes to call himself the "Lone Wolf", and spends some time with him in Alaska . Despite his talent in various fields, he does not receive an adequate education. Further stages of his life are the Korean War , a motorcycle accident that left him with a permanent physical handicap that was associated with constant severe pain, and finally his first prison stay, which brought him together with Hickock. Hickock also survived a serious traffic accident with head injuries, his father cites it in court and says that afterwards he observed a change in his son's personality for the worse. The public prosecutor's office refers to a previous conviction imposed before the accident and thus invalidates this argument.

Actually, Smith does not want to have anything to do with Hickock after serving his sentence, but after a disappointment - another acquaintance from prison, whom he wanted to meet again, has disappeared without a trace - he is persuaded to attack the Clutters.

After Smith and Hickock discover that there is no safe in the house and that Clutter has hardly any cash with him, Smith urges them to leave the farm as soon as possible and let the family live. But the Clutters could identify the perpetrators and Hickock does not want to leave the house without having raped the daughter. He does not admit that this was the real background to the break-in until some time after his arrest. Smith prevents his partner from carrying out the act, but is ultimately convinced that the murders are inevitable and, in the presence of Hickock, shoots all four members of the family.

The investigators around KBI agent Alvin Dewey are looking for the murderers who have fled. They were picked up in a stolen vehicle in January 1960, sentenced to death by hanging and executed on April 14, 1965.

effect

In Truman Capote's factual novel, which also describes the restless escape of Hickock and Smith as well as their years of imprisonment up to the execution, the bloody act is described as a "psychological accident". At least Smith seems to have simply gotten into a situation from which he - as fascinated as before an exciting film - no longer breaks out because he “wants to know how things will go on”. And when he kills Herbert Clutter, the well-to-do, respected farmer, he feels as if this representative of the normal and longed for had to pay for the fact that he always came up short. Although such an act of hatred and revenge testifies to a complete shift in all values ​​and a clear personality disorder, one cannot always deny all sympathy while reading Perry Smith.

With his detailed description of the lives of two murderers, Capote provides a background for the initially completely incomprehensible act.

Publication dates

  • In cold blood. Truthful account of a multiple murder and its aftermath. Translation: Kurt Heinrich Hansen. Wiesbaden: Limes 1966. - That., Ders., Bln. 1968. - Dass., Ders., Reinbek 1969 ( rororo ).
  • In cold blood . Newly translated from the American by Thomas Mohr. Ed .: Anuschka Roshani. Zurich: No & But 2007. ISBN 978-3-0369-5161-4

Film adaptations

The novel was filmed twice. The first version from 1967 comes from the director Richard Brooks , who staged the film primarily as a statement against the death penalty . Another version in the form of a TV two-part was made in 1996, directed by Jonathan Kaplan . The roles of the murderers Hickock and Smith took on the actor Anthony Edwards and Julia Roberts brother Eric, well-known from the series Emergency Room .

The genesis of the novel and Capote's struggle with himself are described in two films by the directors Bennett Miller and Douglas McGrath . In Miller's film Capote (2005), the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman slipped into the role of the writer, for which he received the 2006 Academy Award for Best Actor, while Catherine Keener played the part of Capote's childhood friend Harper Lee . In McGrath's film Cold Blood - In the Footsteps of Truman Capote (2006) Toby Jones plays Truman Capote, Sandra Bullock plays Harper Lee.

Radio play editing

In 2002, Bayerischer Rundfunk produced a three-part radio play version. With Gerhard Garbers , Harry Täschner , Ulli Philipp , Laura Maire , Renate Grosser , Jens Wawrczeck , Jochen Striebeck , Peter Rühring, Karin Anselm , Margrit Carls, Rainer Bock, Helmut Stange, Elisabeth Endriss , Wolfgang Hinze , Rolf Illig , Reinhard Glemnitz u. v. a. Editing and direction: Irene Schuck .

Web links

To the films :