Literary non fiction vs Crime reporting

[mollyfernandez]

The term literary non-fiction means that the book is about a true event but reads like a non fiction book. This means that a reader could read this whole book without knowing that this truly happened. On the other hand, there is crime reporting. This is where the facts of a crime are stated in a bland way. The idea of crime reporting is to get facts out, not to tell a story. However, Truman started from a crime report and then did research in order to build a story around it. One thing that you get in Truman’s work that you would not get in a crime report is a emotional connection with any of the victims or criminals. In Cold Blood lets you feel an emotional connection with the victims making the reader feel similar to how the townspeople felt after their murder. However, Truman also makes the reader feel an emotional connection with the murders making the reader feel conflicted as they just felt bad for the family but now feel just as bad for Dick and Perry. The reader starts to feel bad for Perry as Truman describes how tough his upbringing was on him and how his father felt no compassion or connection with him. This makes the reader reflect on their upbringing and realize how upsetting that would be to not have the supportive parents that we do. Capote deliberately does this to make the reader see that there are always two sides to a story. No matter how it seems there are always reasons for some one to act a certain way or to do certain things no matter how terrible they seem to us. This makes the reader come away feeling a sense of confusion. Their whole life they have been thought that life is black and white; there is nothing that can excuse a wrong or explain why one would act a certain way. However, Truman proves that life is not simple and people in society always have a reason behind an action that help people understand them and understand the why behind their actions. Literary non fiction gives the author a lot of power. He is able to decide how he wants the readers to feel and molds the story and perspectives to make that happen. Literary non fiction supports bias where as crime reporting shows no emotional toward either the victim of the criminal so there is no bias in it. 

[baileyfessler]

I completely agree with Molly. In Cold Blood goes beyond crime reporting and nonfiction writing to create a complete story that portrays the facts, while creating an emotional connection with the reader. Because the story is written from multiple perspectives, the reader not only feels sympathy for the Clutters and those close to them, but also for Dick and Perry. These sympathies are built through Capote establishing in depth backgrounds for the people in his book. Furthermore Capote does exhibit bias in this book, especially in his portraying of Perry, which molds the reader to think in an unconventional manner about those involved in crime.