Naturalism, the New Journalism, and the Tradition of the Modern American Fact-Based Homicide Novel
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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 NATURALISM, THE NEW JOURNALISM, AND THE TRADITION OF THE MODERN AMERICAN FACT-BASED HOMICIDE NOVEL by Lana Ann Whited A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 1993 Dissertat~on Adv~sor @ 1993 by Lana Ann Whited APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dissertation Advisor-------------------------------- Committee Members___ l_~_--_t_~ ___'_·~-c~~-~~~~·=,~~~-~~~~----- ~&?c Date of Acceptance by Committee 29 E 1!!3 Date of Final Oral Examination ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to express profound appreciation to Dr. Keith Cushman, under whose patient guidance I have written this dissertation, for a very productive directed reading and for his shrewd criticism, careful reading and re-reading of manuscripts, and continued support. I am also grateful to Dr. Charles E. Davis, Dr. Randolph M. Bulgin, and Dr. Walter H. Beale for their reading of hundreds of pages, their sound advice, and their encouragement. Dr. Chris Anderson was instrumental in my choosing to write about In Cold Blood; had I not taken his course in Contemporary American Prose Style at UNCG, I would have written a very different dissertation. I am also indebted to a number of colleagues and friends who have read this dissertation, or parts of it, in draft, many during the Ferrum College Faculty Writing Workshop: Gail Allen, Betty Bailey, Jim Bier, Cy Dillon, Dan Gribbin, Katherine Grimes, Betty Heard, Marcia Horn, Susan Mead, Julie Meltzer, Dave Sulzen, and Julia White. The Writing Workshop is funded through the office of Ferrum College • s Vice-J?resident for Academic Affairs, Dr. Joseph Carter, whose support for faculty development is constant. iii Among my Ferrum colleagues, I am particularly grateful to Martha Brandt and James Downey, who have educated me in French and philosophy, respectively. Stanley Library, with its competent and willing staff, has proven a wonderful place to do research. In particular, Patty Slider worked tirelessly and without complaint ordering interlibrary loan materials. My parents, Joan and Paul Whited, and my sister, Dana Whited Steel, have always made it clear that they believed I could finish this dissertation, even when they must have wondered what was taking so long. Finally, I have been fortunate that Katherine Grimes has been my fellow student in this program. The quality of her scholarship has raised the level of my own. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page APPROVAL PAGE ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii CHAPTER I. THE MODERN FACT-BASED HOMICIDE NOVEL: AN INTRODUCTION • • • • • • 1 II. THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN LITERARY NATURALISM • • • • • • • • • • • 13 III. THE JOURNALISTIC, FORMAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND OF THE FACT-BASED HOMICIDE NOVEL • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 32 IV. NATURALISM IN TRANSITION: THE FACT-BASED HOMICIDE NOVEL, 1930-1960 • • • • • 85 V. THE OLD NATURALISM MEE~S THE NEW JOURNALISM: CAPOTE'S IN COLD BLOOD • • • • • • • 182 VI. MAILER'S BIG "NON-BOOK": ---THE EXECUTIONER'S ----SONG AS DENOUEMENT • 234 VII. NATURALISM IN THE '90s? 269 ENDNOTES 318 BIBLIOGRAPHY • 321 APPENDIX A. A FILMOGRAPHY 348 v "Listen to the story of anyone who has gone to prison, and see if he ever had a chance to go anywhere else." --Clarence Darrow "Reporters love murders." --Calvin Trillin vi WHITED, LANA ANN, Ph.D., Naturalism, the New Journalism, and the Tradition of the Modern American Fact-Based Homicide Novel. (1993) Directed by Dr. Keith Cushman. 348 pp. With the 1965 publication of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote announced the creation of a new literary genre: the "nonfiction novel. 11 Because Capote's book inspired a succession of "copycats," many critics have traced a genre from it. But Capote's book is the culmination, not the commencement, of using fictional techniques to write about real murder cases. Capote's deterministic treatment of the protagonist, his use of reporting techniques, and his focus on the murderers (rather than the victims, police, or plot) reveal the book's Naturalistic roots. In Cold Blood's earliest ancestors in American literature are Frank Norris's McTeague and Theodore Dreiser' s An American Tragedy. American Naturalists such as Norris and Dreiser were directly influenced by Emile Zola and the natural philosophy of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. For generations, Naturalism influenced authors of fact-based homicide novels, among them William Faulkner (Light in August), James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), Richard Wright (Native Son), and Meyer Levin (Compulsion). The writer of the fact-based homicide novel characterizes the killer in such a way that the reader understands the circumstances which led to the crime and sympathizes with the protagonist. After In Cold Blood, the naturalistic influence on the fact-based homicide novel becomes diffused. Many recent books lack the deterministic orientation and are consequently journalistic or documentary. Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song is the most notable example. Other recent books influenced by the fact-based homicide novel tradition are Judith Rossner' s Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field, Gerold Frank's The Boston Strangler, John Hersey's The Algiers Motel Incident, Calvin Trillin's Killings, Vincent Bugliosi' s Helter Skelter, Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision, and Alec Wilkinson's A Violent Act. 1 CHAPTER I THE MODERN FACT-BASED HOMICIDE NOVEL: AN INTRODUCTION "I truly don't believe anything like [In Cold Blood] exists in the history of journalism." Truman Capote With the 1965 publication of In Cold Blood: ---A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences, Truman Capote announced the arrival of a ne~v literary form--the nonfiction novel. The story of the murder of four members of a Kansas family and the subsequent pursuit, trial, and execution of the two murderers, In Cold Blood treats material accumulated through journalistic methods (reporting the "facts") using the narrative techniques of the novel. Shortly before his death in 1985, Capote reiterated his claim for the novel's importance: I wanted to write what I called a nonfiction novel--a book that would read exactly like a novel except that every word of it would be absolutely ·true. I had written a book that was like that called The Muses Are Heard. It was a short book about Russia and every word of it was true and it reads like a short novel, but I wanted to do it on a grand scale. I had two sort of dry runs with subjects that just turned out not to have enough material in them to do what I wanted to do and finally I settled on this obscure crime in this remote part of Kansas because I felt, if I followed this from beginning to end it would provide me with the material to really accomplish what was a technical feat. It was a literary experiment. (Grobel 116) 2 Asked by interviewer Lawrence Grobel, "So there's no doubt in your mind that you achieved literary history with that book?" Capote replied, "Yes, I did. Just look at the multitude of copycats" (116). He told Shana Alexander of --'Life "the book will be a classic." Initially serialized in The New Yorker, the novel was an immediate success. In The New York Review of Books, F. W. Dupee called it "the best documentary account of an American crime ever written" ( 3) • George Garrett said that it was "a frank bid for greatness" (3) and "a work of art, the work of an artist" (12). And Newsweek described Capote's decision to write this story as "one of the most inspired hunches in literary history" ("The Fabulist" 58). Almost immediately after the book's publication, Capote secured a movie contract (and when the film was promoted in 1967, the author appeared on the cover of Life along with Scott Wilson and Robert Blake, who played Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, respectively). He did the talk-show circuit and gave interviews to ·countless magazines.