Summary of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (Vintage International)

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The town of Holcomb is located on the high wheat plains of western Kansas. It is a lonesome area that other Kansans call out there. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, and the men wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes.
#2 Until November 1959, no Americans had ever heard of Holcomb. But when four foreign sounds impinged on the town’s normal noises that morning, none of the people there had ever heard them before.
#3 Herbert William Clutter was the master of River Valley Farm. He was 48 years old, and he had a strong and healthy appearance. He was not as rich as the richest man in Holcomb, Mr. Taylor Jones, a neighboring rancher, but he was still widely known and respected among Midwestern agriculturists.
#4 Mr. Clutter’s wife, Bonnie, had been an on-and-off psychiatric patient the last half-dozen years. She had recently been diagnosed with a physical condition that was causing her pain. Clutter was worried about how his family would react to this news.

Sujets

• Général
• Murder

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 07 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669381112
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (Vintage International)
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The town of Holcomb is located on the high wheat plains of western Kansas. It is a lonesome area that other Kansans call out there. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, and the men wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes.

#2

Until November 1959, no Americans had ever heard of Holcomb. But when four foreign sounds impinged on the town’s normal noises that morning, none of the people there had ever heard them before.

#3

Herbert William Clutter was the master of River Valley Farm. He was 48 years old, and he had a strong and healthy appearance. He was not as rich as the richest man in Holcomb, Mr. Taylor Jones, a neighboring rancher, but he was still widely known and respected among Midwestern agriculturists.

#4

Mr. Clutter’s wife, Bonnie, had been an on-and-off psychiatric patient the last half-dozen years. She had recently been diagnosed with a physical condition that was causing her pain. Clutter was worried about how his family would react to this news.

#5

Mr. Clutter liked Bobby, and considered him dependable and gentlemanly. However, he did not approve of his daughter dating anyone else, as it was the current national adolescent custom to form couples and wear engagement rings. He asked her to begin a gradual breaking off with Bobby.

#6

Mr. Clutter was a very strict employer. He did not drink, smoke, or use caffeine, and he enforced these rules within his family and the employees at River Valley Farm. He was not a hearty eater, and he only drank milk.

#7

One of the barns was a Quonset hut, and it housed a dark, pungent hill of milo grain worth considerable money. The farm was successful because it was dedicated to growing only crops that were important to the government.

#8

The Clutters had a grove of fruit trees near the river, which was their attempt at creating a patch of the paradise he envisioned.

#9

Mr. Clutter had a property along the river that was not very accessible, and was not often visited by strangers. One day, five pheasant hunters from Oklahoma showed up and began hunting. Clutter did not realize that it would be his last hunting expedition.

#10

The young man in the café, who never drank coffee, preferred root beer. He was waiting for a friend, and was sure he would show up. He was planning on moving to Mexico.

#11

The map showed the locations of Ink-circled names. COZUMEL, an island off the coast of Yucatán, where you could shed your clothes, put on a relaxed grin, and have all the women you want for $50-a-month. ACAPULCO connoted deep-sea fishing, casinos, and anxious rich women. SIERRA MADRE meant gold.

#12

Dick was a half hour late, but if he had not hammered home the importance of the next twenty-four hours, he would not have noticed it. Time rarely weighed on him because he had many methods of passing it. He always used the same mental scenery: a night club in Las Vegas, which was his home town.

#13

Nancy was always available to help other girls with their cooking, sewing, or music lessons. She had so many commitments that there was no room for a cherry-pie lesson for Jolene.

#14

Nancy was a pretty girl with darkly translucent eyes and a kind demeanor. She was always friendly and likable, and her lack of suspicion made her very easy to trust.

#15

The two friends had discussed the problem of Nancy’s father and her relationship with him. They had agreed that she loved Bobby now, and needed him. But deep down, even Bobby knew there wasn’t any future in it.

#16

Dick was a hunter, and he had a strange collection of items in his car. He was driving a 1949 Chevrolet, and as Perry got in, he checked the back seat to see if his guitar was safely there. It was an old Gibson guitar, sandpapered and waxed to a honey-yellow finish. Another sort of instrument lay beside it: a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.

#17

Dick and Perry went to visit Perry’s sister in Fort Scott, Kansas, and drove back to Olathe in the late afternoon. They had a job to do, and they did it well.

#18

Nancy’s mother, Mrs. Clutter, was a very strange woman. She was always in a rush, but she always had time. She was always happy, and she always had pie.

#19

Mrs. Clutter was very nervous, and she invited her daughter into the dining room to show her some of her miniature items. She had not been spoiled, and she had led people to believe that life was a sequence of agreeable events for her.

#20

The Clutter family was torn apart by the crimes. Mrs. Clutter was despondent after the birth of her children, and she never quite recovered from it. She was always carrying something of her own with her, even when she went on vacation.

#21

The house was large, and the four bedrooms on the second floor were austere. The only used drawer in the bureau contained a jar of Vick’s Vaporub, Kleenex, an electric heating pad, and white nightgowns. Bonnie was always cold.

#22

The two young men had little in common, but they did share a number of surface traits. They were both fastidious, attentive to hygiene and the condition of their fingernails. After their grease-monkey morning, they spent the better part of an hour sprucing up in the lavatory of the garage.

#23

Dick’s face was composed of mismatched parts. His head had been halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off center. Something similar had happened to Perry, who had spent half a year in a State of Washington hospital and another six months on crutches.

#24

Garden City, Kansas, was a town of 11,000 that began assembling its founders soon after the Civil War. It is a fair-sized town in the middle of the continental United States.

#25

Garden Citians do not socialize with those of different social classes, but class distinctions are clear in any other human hive.

#26

The first purchase was a pair of rubber gloves for Perry, who had neglected to bring old gloves of his own. They went to a store that sold women’s hosiery and decided to buy black stockings for Dick’s injured eye.

#27

The plan was to kill everyone in the house, including the couple’s two children, who were aged seven and five. The couple had built a chest that would serve as their wedding present. It was a mahogany hope chest, lined with cedar.

#28

Kenyon resembled neither of his parents physically. He was six feet tall and lanky, and he lacked the muscular coordination of a boy his age. He had only one close friend, Bob Jones, the son of Taylor Jones, whose ranch was a mile west of the Clutter home.

#29

One evening, Kenyon went out to take care of some chores. He found Mr. Helm digging in his mother’s flower garden. He asked Kenyon if he had seen a car in the driveway. Kenyon said he hadn’t. Mr. Helm said that the car had been there for three hours.

#30

Dick had driven Perry to a Catholic hospital in Emporia. While Perry waited in the car, he had gone into the hospital to try and buy a pair of black stockings from a nun. This was an unorthodox method of obtaining them, but Perry was a serious believer in fate.

#31

Perry had a difficult time dealing with the fact that his friend was a Christian. He was extremely critical of religion, and when he heard Willie-Jay sing in the prison choir, he thought he was a poet. However, he was unable to admit this and risk losing his friend.

#32

After Perry’s parole, four months passed before Dick’s letter arrived. In it, he told Perry that he had met someone who had put him on to something they could accomplish. It was a cinch, the perfect score.

#33

When Perry met with the insurance agent in Garden City, he was reminded of a local joke: Know what they say about you, Herb. Say, ‘Since haircuts went to a dollar-fifty, Herb writes the barber a check.

#34

The agent, Bob Johnson, had sold Herb Clutter on the idea of having a financial adviser. The first payment on a forty-thousand-dollar policy that in the event of death by accidental means, paid double indemnity.

#35

Perry was not much of a drinker, but he was willing to give it a try with Dick. They passed the bottle back and forth, and Dick switched on the radio. Perry switched it off. He began to strum his guitar and sing: I came to the garden alone, while the dew was still on the roses.

#36

The last time Bobby Rupp visited the Clutter house was to take a lie-detector test. He described how he and Nancy would go for drives, or watch television together. He said that Nancy was the only girl he ever dated.

#37

I lived three miles west of the Clutter house. I used to walk there and back every day, but last year I had bought my own car, a 1955 Ford, so I drove there instead. When I got there, they had finished supper and were in the living room. I sat around like any other night with Nancy and Mr. Clutter.

#38

The Clutter family had a TV set, but Kenyon didn’t like anything that was on it. He would often criticize everything, and Nancy would tell him to hush up. He was very close to his sister, but they never understood him.

#39

As the black Chevrolet reached the colder, cracker-dry climate of the high wheat plains, Perry dozed off into a food-dazed semi-slumber. He woke to hear a voice reading the 11 p. m. news. He ate three aspirins and drank water from the lavatory tap.

#40

Dick had begun to see more of Perry, and had begun to think of him as a valuable resource. He had begun to flatter him and pretend to share his beachcomber yearnings. But it was important that Perry not suspect this until Perry had helped further Dick’s ambitions.

#41

Nancy’s bedroom was the smallest and most personal room in the house. It was girlish and as frothy as a ballerina’s tutu. Nancy was alwa