The Istoriaphile’s Corner

Fifty-five years ago this week, a Kansas farmer, his wife and two youngest children were murdered by a pair of ex-convicts.  The cons didn’t get away with much (other than the lives of their victims) and they didn’t get away for long because they were under arrest within six weeks, under sentence of within six months and under the ground within six years, executed for the crimes they’d committed.   In today’s 24/7 news cycle, that story would have been buried as quickly as the principals.  Instead, a fairly large group of people continue to mark this sad anniversary because Truman Capote wrote a book about the crime that set a new style and standard for writers and readers.  You could say the book, In Cold Blood, was a literary event in the ’60’s that stayed popular for a number of years.  For the generation who lived or grew up in Kansas in the aftermath of that book, the repercussions continued much longer My family moved first to Kansas and then to Garden City (the county seat where the defendants were tried) shortly after Hollywood released a film adaptation of Mr. Capote’s book.  Because of the popularity of the book and…