This is an interesting graphic novel—or "drawn novel", as the cover rather pretentiously suggests—that works as a standalone but ought to work better as a companion piece. It's about the writer Truman Capote but it only gives us a very particular glimpse at him, focused very specifically on a relatively brief but crucial time in his life, when he visited Kansas to write the book 'In Cold Blood'. It's not about the murders that prompted that and it's not about the book itself. It's about how a talented writer, so far away from his natural environment, went about the discovery phase of the process and how much of a struggle that was for him. That's really niche.

If none of the above rings any bells for you, it's about the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb in 1959. Two men, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, planned to steal the safe of farmer Herb Clutter, a safe that didn't actually exist. When they left the Clutter farm, Herb was dead, along with his wife Bonnie and their two youngest children, Nancy and Kenyon, who were teenagers. The killers were arrested six weeks later, tried and executed. Capote was already an acclaimed writer, famous for 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', and he visited Holcomb to write about the murders before the killers had been caught. He spent six years writing 'In Cold Blood', which was immediately successful. It's the second bestselling true crime book in history after Vincent Bugliosi's 'Helter Skelter'.

Initially, this stands out because of the stark black and white imagery of Chris Samnee. He starts with the murders, specifically that of Nancy Clutter, and does so almost entirely with visuals that benefit from a fantastic use of light. Then we leap a world away to Capote telling stories in a posh restaurant and flirting with the waiter. Here, Parks takes over to establish Capote's wit and urge to control the situation. Ande Parks lets us figure out who's there with him, namely Jack Dunphy, his partner; the writer Norman Mailer; William Paley, who founded CBS; and Paley's wife, Babe, who quickly becomes the only other person at the table, so Capote can talk about the projects he might pursue, including the family killed in Kansas.

After shifting from rural images to society words, Parks then brings the two together, as Capote travels to Holcomb by train with Nelle Lee, a childhood friend and fellow author, though her first book isn't published yet. Capote's a fan anyway and America would follow suit when it saw print as 'To Kill a Mockingbird', credited to Harper Lee. He doesn't make a good impression on the locals in the slightest, so nobody wants to talk to him, but she does and eventually explains to him that he has to find a way to connect with these people to tell their story.

To a large degree, that's the book, because it's really a character study of Capote as he immerses himself into this project. The most telling line arrives in a letter he writes to Jack, explaining that he has "no chance of success unless I lose myself completely in this place... these people." 'In Cold Blood' took him six years to write and we don't see those. We see the beginning of what it took to assemble that story. After a poor first impression, he gets Agent Alvin Dewey, lead investigator, to open up and share information. When the killers are arrested, he visits both of them in jail and builds different relationships with them.

Rather surprisingly, he stumbles into another with the ghost of Nancy Clutter, which does lead to a neat ending but also takes this in a direction very different to any other take on the story. That may be a good thing and it's not out of keeping with the "non-fiction novel" approach that Capote took with 'In Cold Blood'. It's substantially true but with liberties taken for dramatic effect that a lot of those involved quickly found fault with. Bringing in Nancy's ghost would seem to be another liberty taken for dramatic effect and how effectively that's done doesn't change its nature.

Similarly, there are moments here that are uncomfortable and they're not necessarily dark ones. While Capote achieved wide acclaim with 'In Cold Blood', which sold like hot cakes, Parks paints a more nuanced picture of him here that exposes a number of flaws. He's such a fish out of water in the early scenes in Kansas that it's hard to imagine he can change, but the best scenes are those in which he does, starting by changing his clothing to something that doesn't scream high society. It's odd to see someone so incisive fail so strongly and need a friend to get him past it. Later, he's unwise in consolation and fails yet again. Really, though, this book should be uncomfortable and very possibly more so than it is, even starting with a murder and ending with an execution.

I wonder how much of an impact this book had, given that it was released in July 2005, only three months before the Oscar-winning movie 'Capote' which covered much the same ground. That runs longer, with more time dedicated to the writing process rather than just the discovery. This has a few pages to provide the necessary endings but really ends long before that when Capote leaves Kansas. Still, the prominence of the movie relegates this to a companion piece, perhaps unfairly. In isolation, it might have had more impact. ~~ Hal C F Astell