Mockingbird (47 page)

Authors: Charles J. Shields

BOOK: Mockingbird

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ââ
55
.âPlimpton, “Nonfiction Novel.” Capote has been credited with creating a new genre, the nonfiction novel; Lee used the word he preferred,
reportage
, to describe it, which gained some currency in connection with the New Journalism in the 1960s.
Â Â Â Â Â Plimpton's 1966 article begins: “âIn Cold Blood' is remarkable for its objectivityânowhere, despite his involvement, does the author intrude. In the following interview, done a few weeks ago, Truman Capote presents his own views on the case, its principals, and in particular he discusses the new literary art form which he calls the nonfiction novel.â¦”
Â Â Â Â Â The laurel, however, for the nonfiction novella (it was thirty-one thousand words) goes to John Hersey's
Hiroshima
(1946) which was serialized in the
New Yorker
beginning August 31, 1946. “Hiroshima” traced the experiences of six residents who survived the blast of August 6, 1945, at 8:15
A.M
. Forty years after its publication, Hersey said in a letter to the historian Paul Boyer, “The flat style was deliberate, and I still think I was right to adopt it. A high literary manner, or a show of passion, would have brought me into the story as a mediator; I wanted to avoid such mediation, so the reader's experience would be as direct as possible.” Paul Boyer,
By the Bomb's Early Light
(New York: Pantheon, 1985), 208.

122
.âTruman Capote, letter to Cecil Beaton, 21 January 1960, in Clarke,
Too Brief
, 276â77. Capote was not the only one with that ideaâStarling Mack Nations (Mack Nations), a Kansas-born newspaper publisher, was trying to beat his time on a book deal.
Â Â Â Â Â Starting in March 1961, Nations began interviewing Hickock and Smith in the penitentiary, too. Hickock, seeing that Smith and Capote were collaborating on a book, told Nations he would cooperate exclusively with him. When Nations agreed, he excitedly proposed a grandiose plan. “I believe I informed you before that I would be perfectly willing to agree to an arrangement on a fifty-fifty split basis. I realize that your expenses will be considerable in the event of your traveling to New York City. I agree that the most expedient method of selling the book would be a personal appearance before the publisher, and an oral sales talk is by far superior to one by mail. Time is a very important factor as far as my future benefit is concerned, and I also am aware that this could possibly be a hindrance in our obtaining the maximum sales price for the material.” A contract was drawn up in the early summer of 1961; over the next six months, Nations wrote a book-length manuscript, “High Road to Hell,” a portion of which appeared in the December issue of
Male
magazine, adding to Capote's anxiety that the story would slip through his hands. Nations had difficulty finding a publisher, however. The manuscript was lost after Nations was killed in an automobile accident on Christmas Eve, 1968. His papers are available at the Kansas State Historical Society.

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