Truman Capote

(1924-1984)

• Started writing at age 11• Also wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s• While working on ‘In ColdBlood’, received lots of helpfrom Harper Lee, his childhoodfriend and neighbor• Harper Lee is the author of To Kill a Mockingbird. The character of Dill is based offTruman Capote

• Truman Capote is responsible for starting the genre of ‘true crime’. In Cold Blood made true crime an interesting, successful, commercial genre.

• However, in spite of all of Truman Capote’s fame, there were those who protested the book. People claimed that some of the events in the book didn’t occur, or that Capote dramatized what actually occurred.

• Capote’s life partner was Jack Dunphy, a fellow writer

• Later in life Capote became addicted to alcohol and drugs• He died in 1984 fromliver cancer

Jack Dunphy

Starting In Cold Blood: The Epigraph

Frères humains qui après nous vivez,N'ayez les cuers contre nous endurcis,Car, se pitié de nous povres avez,Dieu en aura plus tost de vous mercis . . .

-Francois VillonBallade des pendus

Ballad of the Hanged

Brothers that live when we are deadDon’t set yourself against us tooIf you could pity us instead,Then God may sooner pity you.