1. TRUMAN CAPOTE
And In Cold Blood

2. Truman Capote Biography
Truman Streckfus Persons Born September 30, 1924 (The Sun Also Rises is published in 1926)
1930: Sent to live with his mother’s family in Alabama, where he meets lifelong friend Nelle Harper Lee (author of To Kill A Mockingbird)
Critics believe he is the character of Dill
Some critics believe he wrote TKAM; others believe he just helped
Harper Lee becomes his research assistant for In Cold Blood
Parents divorce in 1931, and his mother marries Joseph Capote in The new family moves to New York.
1935: changes last name to Capote.
1939: moves to Greenwich, CT. Begins writing and submitting short stories.
When he fails to graduate from high school in CT, he moves back to New York and enters the Franklin School.

3. Biography (con’t)
Works as a copyboy for the New Yorker while finishing school
1943: Graduates from Franklin School
1943: First published work "The Walls Are Cold" in Decade of Short Stories
1944:"A Mink of One's Own" and "The Shape of Things" published in Decade of Short Stories
1945: Signs contract for his first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms

4. Biography (con’t)
1945: Moves away from his mother due to her alcoholism
Jan. 19, 1948: Other Voices, Other Rooms published
1951: The Grass Harp is published. He adapts it into a play, which begins its run on Broadway in 1952 for one month. Moves to Rome in 1952.
1954: His mother dies from an overdose of sleeping pills.

5. 1956: Moves back to New York from Rome
1956: Moves back to New York from Rome. Travels to Asia to write about the filming of a Marlon Brando movie.
1958: Short story “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is published in the Esquire.
1959: Travels to Kansas with Harper Lee to research Clutter murders.
Begins work on In Cold Blood .
1965: In Cold Blood runs in the New Yorker in 4 installments.
1966: Hosts first Black and White Ball.

6. 1967: Movie In Cold Blood released
Interesting side note: Robert Blake starred in the
film as Perry Smith. In 2002, Blake was arrested
and later tried for the shooting murder of his wife.
He was found not guilty despite evidence that he
tried to hire a hit man to kill her.
1981: Arch Persons, Capote’s birth father, dies.
1984: Capote dies of hear failure.

7. Truman Capote and Harper Lee
Capote with
Alvin Dewey And
Mrs. Dewey

8. Holcumb, Kansas aerial view 2008
Holcomb remains primarily a farming
town. On the outskirts of Garden
City, KS (much like how Marietta is
Just outside of Atlanta), the town
was made famous by Capote. People
Still visit the town to see the Clutter
Home and other cites that were the
focus of the investigation and
Capote’s novel.

9. The Clutter Home Today Bonnie Clutter’s Bedroom The caretaker’s house
Dining room of the home
The Clutter House Basement

10. Capote’s style: In Cold Blood
Takes credit for creating what he calls the “non-fiction novel”: depicts real events narrated with techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely-defined and flexible genre.
Hints of this type of novel exist before Capote, but the non-fiction narrative, as it is now referred to, is considered to have been born with the publication of In Cold Blood.

12. A drawing of Jesus by Perry Smith Richard Hickock and Perry Smith
The picture on the bottom is of Truman Capote and Perry Smith.
Perry Smith
talks with
Truman Capote