Mayor Works

Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1948

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1958

In Cold Blood, 1966 (made into a film in 1967

“This book was an important event for me. While writing it, I realized I just might have found a solution to what had always been my greatest creative quandary. I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.”

Answered Prayers, unfinished (excerpted in Vanity Fair in 1975)

Published about 13 works in total, mostly short volumes of novellas, short stories

Died in 1984, age 59

Why did you select this particular subject matter of murder; had you previously been interested in crime?

Not really, no. During the last years I've learned a good deal about crime, and the origins of the homicidal mentality. Still, it is a layman's knowledge and I don't pretend to anything deeper. The motivating factor in my choice of material--that is, choosing to write a true account of an actual murder case--was altogether literary. The decision was based on a theory I've harbored since I first began to write professionally, which is well over 20 years ago. It seemed to me that journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art form: the "nonfiction novel," as I thought of it. Several admirable reporters--Rebecca West for one, and Joseph Mitchell and Lillian Ross--have shown the possibilities of narrative reportage; and Miss Ross, in her brilliant "Picture," achieved at least a nonfiction novella. Still, on the whole, journalism is the most underestimated, the least explored of literary mediums.

Interview with George Plimpton, Jan. 16, 1966

“Of course a properly done piece of narrative reporting requires imagination!--and a good deal of special technical equipment that is usually beyond the resources--and I don't doubt the interests-- of most fictional writers: an ability to transcribe verbatim long conversations, and to do so without taking notes or using tape-recordings. Also, it is necessary to have a 20/20 eye for visual detail--in this sense, it is quite true that one must be a "literary photographer," though an exceedingly selective one. But, above all, the reporter must be able to empathize with personalities outside his usual imaginative range, mentalities unlike his own, kinds of people he would never have written about had he not been forced to by encountering them inside the journalistic situation. This last is what first attracted me to the notion of narrative reportage.”

—Plimpton, ibid

In Cold Blood originally published in four parts in The New Yorker, 1965

Had formulated the idea of a nonfiction

“novel”

Saw an article in The New York Times that

grabbed his attention.

I’m pretty sure it was this one.

Most anyone who types today owes something to Capote. A novelist who developed a passing interest in real events, he transformed the hackwork of journalism into something far more literary and substantial. —David Carr, New York Times

This is a piece that reviews two films about Capote, but also points out the way in which Capote was a pioneer for certain types of literary journalism, such as Joe McGinnis’ Fatal Vision.

Capote was a master publicist, and spent quite a lot of time discussing his new genre, his technique. He claimed to train himself to have perfect recall with interviews and not even need to take notes.

Unsurprisingly, almost from the start, some people pointed out possible errors, even fabrication. Capote did, notably, acknowledge one scene that wasn’t true right before he died (Slate Magazine, 2013)

The Slate article also delves into how this even happened, given that The New Yorker was a pioneer in contemporary fact-checking

The shoe really dropped

In 2013, “new evidence undermines Mr.

Capote's claim that his best seller was an

"immaculately factual" recounting of the

bloody slaughter of the Clutter family in their

Kansas farmhouse. It also calls into question

the image of Mr. Dewey as the brilliant,

haunted hero.” —Wall Street Journal

Kansas Bureau of Investigation documents from the investigation into the deaths suggests that the events described in two crucial chapters of the 1966 book differ significantly from what actually happened. Separately, a contract reviewed and authenticated by The Wall Street Journal shows that Mr. Capote in 1965 required Columbia Pictures to offer Mr. Dewey's wife a job as a consultant to the film version of his book for a fee far greater than the U.S. median family” —WSJ, ibid

“...at a key moment in the 1959 investigation,

when 19 days of utter bafflement ended with

an informant stepping forward and naming

the killers, the KBI didn't snap to action,

according to the new documents. It didn't, as

Mr. Capote's book says, dispatch an agent

that very night to the Kansas farmhouse

where one of the suspects had been living

with his parents.Instead, the KBI waited five

days to visit that farmhouse, according to the

KBI documents...” WSJ, ibid

The New Yorker on the issue of veracity.

Salon.com with a round-up of other reporting

on the 2013 revelations

Although Capote is often noted as a stylist,

this New Republic article is an interesting

critique of In Cold Blood’s writing.

Many supporters of Capote say that many of

the contemporary rules regarding nonfiction

were created because of this book:

Fact-checking, sourcing, footnotes

But it also raises many of the same

questions we encountered in The Journalist

and the Murderer

Relationships between writer and source and

how it impacts the writer

The relationship between narrative technique

and factual reporting

And it’s a question that still plagues the

entire genre of nonfiction, particularly

memoir. (NPR, 2012)

Bring your own questions, think about these:

The relationship between sources and reporters

The importance of fact-checking; Is John D’agata right to distinguish fact from art?

Capote’s belief that a murder would have long-lasting literary merits

The writing itself, stylistically

How does it impact your reading to learn that much of what Capote wrote was contested?

Why (or why not) do you think having 100 percent accuracy is important for journalism?

Are you willing to cut more slack if the writing is a nonfiction “novel” as Capote says?

Is there any way in which using techniques that typically belong to other genres might impact content?

Honest mistakes are different than

fabrication

Fabrication, if you’re a journalist, will end

your career.

And there have been some pretty fascinating

high profile examples. My favorite, because

it’s truly crazy, is Stephen Glass, a former

New Republic writer, whose work is the basis

of the movie Shattered Glass.