As most literate persons know by now, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is a searching and compassionate account of two disturbed young men who brutally murdered a Kansas family, were captured, tried and executed. Capote, who called the book a "nonfiction novel," spent six years on it, from shortly after the murder in 1959 to shortly after their hanging in 1965. He had countless hours with the killers in prison, became their intimate friend, showed them the manuscript of the book. They talked to him so frankly and freely that some readers feel Capote exploited them for his own personal triumph.
One angry fault-finder was London Critic Kenneth Tynan. In a review written for the London Observer, Tynan dealt with the book briefly and concentrated on attacking its author. "For the first time," he said, "an influential writer of the front rank has been placed in a position of privileged intimacy with criminals about to die and—in my view—done less than he might have to save them."
Intense Identification? Tynan had been bothered by the book before it was published (it was serialized in The New Yorker). He had expressed his disapproval to Capote when the two men met at parties and when Capote appeared on Tynan's TV program in London. He repeated his objections in his review. In Cold Blood, said Tynan, seemed callously indifferent to the fate of the criminals it scrutinized. Capote probably could have produced enough evidence to show that the two men were insane and might have saved them from hanging. But he did not bother to search out a psychiatrist to testify for the defense. In fact, Tynan suggested, Capote was probably just as happy to see them hang. Their death lent an artistic climax to his story; moreover, if they had lived, they might have refused to let the book be published.
Tynan suggested that Capote was probably in need of a little psychoanalysis himself. He quoted from a lady psychiatrist: "Is it possible that Capote was gaining satisfaction out of acting as confessor to the criminals because of an intense identification with them? At some time or other, all of us feel like killing; but now Capote can avoid the real situation, since someone with whom he strongly identifies has done the killing instead."
Serpentine Suavity. Capote, who despite his effeminate manner can be a tough scrapper, struck back immediately. "I don't believe in artists replying to criticism," he wrote to the Observer, "and I have never done so myself, for I think it shows lack of pride and really serves small purpose. But this bullyboy chicanery concocted by Tynan is one over the odds." Capote emphatically denied that he could have done anything more to save his "pitiful friends." A competent psychiatrist had offered his testimony, and the Kansas court was not likely to be impressed with any more medical men. Nor did he have anything to gain from the deaths of the criminals; each had read parts of the book and signed releases for it.