When? pt. 1 of 5

There are five of us in this group - so we employed the tactic of assigning ourselves the five simple questions of who, what, when, where, and why/how. We figured this would even out the workload and allow for an in-depth analysis of at least the initial context of the novel.

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"Holcomb, Kan., Nov 15 1959 -- A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged...There were no signs of a struggle, and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut." - The New York Times

On November 15th, 1959, two ex-cons, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, on Parole from the Kansas State Penitentiary, broke into the home of Herbert Clutter and his family, attempting to rob him of a small fortune one of their fellow prisoners had revealed to them. Simply looking at the decade in which this tragedy took place is enough of an indicator to contextualize the impact of that horrific night. This is the golden era of "Leave it to Beaver" - in other words, the ideal nuclear family. Not to mention, Kansas is directly in the middle of the Bible belt - this is a community grounded in spirituality. This is the stereotypical neighborhood that leaves its doors unlocked at night. These details, though cliche and as a result sometimes overlooked, are two of the main contributing factors that made this crime especially heinous - this is a random murder with next to no motive. The break-in does not justify the butchery that took place that night.

Immediately following the release of the New York Times' article, which was roughly 300 words, Capote set off to the town of Holcomb with lifelong friend and colleague Harper Lee (author of Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill a Mockingbird). He conducted interviews with the towns folk, those close to the victim, taking thousands of pages of notes, and finally, arranged to meet and interview the killers themselves, developing a relationship with them and gaining their trust in order to get the story.

Capote's book was released in 1966. A detailed account of the alleged events that transpired that night was immediately hailed as a literary innovation. It pioneered the crime genre, telling the gruesome details that transpired from a first person perspective - it was the first look within the mind of a cold blooded killer. It portrays the innermost psychological workings - during a naive generation, the homicide itself and the repercussions from this book spring boarded the public into an age of paranoia.

Even today, this work is still celebrated as a masterpiece of creative non-fiction. This is one aspect where time is irrelevant, for its sharp depictions and near tangible descriptions engulf the reader and thrust them into the experience alongside author and homicidal maniac, even though the parties are separated by half a century.