Truman Capote and the Nonfiction Novel

It is no surprise that Truman Capote's landmark novel, In Cold Blood, is considered a new genre for authors the world over. Never before has a nonfiction novel generated so much public interest and praise. Capote deftly blended the facts of a real situation with the prose of a fiction novel to tell the story of a gruesome murder. Many authors have used this mode of storytelling, known as the nonfiction novel or creative nonfiction, to great success. A lot of these novels achieve bestseller status and for good reason. For many people, a nonfiction novel is like reading a 60 minutes report. A book has that much more staying power when the reader knows it is a true story. But this new kind of writing can lead to a problem that doesn't affect fiction writers. Like this article suggests nonfiction novels can stray into fiction territory. Many people have claimed that Truman made up some of his book, but many more hold to his version as the version of truth. With fiction novels like A Million Little Lies claiming themselves to be nonfiction, it is hard for the public to distinguish between truth and lies. It didn't take long for people to abuse this new genre and it will be interesting to see how it plays itself out in the coming years.