Despite the fact that the crime took place in 1959, the strokes Capote uses to paint the entire scene of the crime can be found, to a less graceful and poignant degree, in every police and crime-themed television show on network TV today.

Forty years ago, Truman Capote wrote a story for The New Yorker magazine knowing that people from the big city would get a kick out of learning how quiet country folk handle the disaster of a brutal murder in the Heartland.

The story eventually became one of the most critically heralded books in American literature and was titled “In Cold Blood.”

What Capote faced upon his arrival in Holcomb, Kan., is the foundation for “Capote,” a soon-to-be-released movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the author. Capote encountered a bit of culture shock in Holcomb and needed help conforming to the ways of rural society from friend and author Harper Lee (“To Kill a Mockingbird”).

The film balances this and the relationship that Capote had with Perry Smith, one of the murderers on death row for the killing of a prominent, well-liked Holcomb family.

That relationship is the basis of “In Cold Blood”, which is considered as one of the first forms of literary non-fiction in America. Smith and friend Richard Hickock savagely murdered Herbert William Clutter, his wife and two children.

Capote does his own investigation of the crime and, in interviewing Smith, becomes friends with him. Despite the nature of the murders, Capote creates a great amount of empathy for Smith.

The book is a masterful crime and suspense novel. Despite the fact that the crime took place in 1959 (the book was released in 1965), the strokes Capote uses to paint the entire scene of the crime can be found, to a less graceful and poignant degree, in every police and crime-themed television show on network TV today.

Some critics have said that Capote’s style of narration is simply too convoluted at times, thus disrupting the story. It is this style of narration, however, that constitutes the beauty of the story. One would be hard-pressed to find the same kind of time and effort put into recapturing a moment with such elegance.

The film ought to re-peak readers’ interest in the book — which it deserves. Early word on the movie is that it is superb and that Hoffman knocks his role as the awkward, squeaky-voiced Capote completely out of the park.

Both forms of Truman Capote’s story are highly recommended.

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