In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Truman Capote had the theory before he had the crime. He told George Plimpton, in a New York Times interview published on January 16, 1966, that he had held it for over twenty years: journalism “could be forced to yield a serious new art form: the ’nonfiction novel,’ as I thought of it” — a narrative using every novelistic technique while staying, in his phrase, “immaculately factual.” He needed material that would not go stale. One November morning in 1959, deep inside the Times, he found a few paragraphs headlined “Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain.”

Truman Capote on SummaryShelf

In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences