Is it strange to praise a graphic novel for its restraint? It’s not intended faintly, and it isn’t just a reaction to a summer of comics that’s had more bombast than substance. It’s a quality that I genuinely admire, and in the case of Capote in Kansas (Oni), it makes for deeply satisfying reading.
The book, written by Andre Parks and illustrated by Chris Samnee, navigates a veritable mine field of sensational material without ever indulging. Parks and Samnee follow novelist Truman Capote as he conducts research for the non-fiction novel that would be his masterpiece, In Cold Blood. The Clutters, a Kansas farm family, have been brutally murdered in their home, and Capote has chosen the tragedy as the subject for his next project.
Parks doesn’t simply adapt Capote’s work for the comic medium. The Clutter tragedy was already expertly documented by Capote himself, and Parks notes that there seems to be little point in covering the same ground. Parks also avoids an examination of Capote’s creative process, at least as it might be conventionally viewed.
Capote in Kansas isn’t about the creation of a literary masterpiece; it’s about a complicated man’s attempts to connect with a community that’s numb with grief and shaken by horror. The details of this process, which Parks admits to handling with dramatic license, are affecting, subtle, and surprising.
When we first meet Capote, he is employing the kind of measured social provocation he’s mastered over the years. At a dinner party, he’s waffling between two possible projects, a satirical expose of high society and the Clutter story. He opts for the latter, seeing an opportunity to expand his literary horizons and experiment with his notion of the non-fiction novel. He enlists his childhood friend Harper Lee, an author on the verge of publishing her own masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Upon arriving in the Clutters’ community, Capote’s expectations of the experience are almost immediately overturned. The qualities that serve him so well in Manhattan – wit, flamboyance, literary celebrity – hold no currency in Garden City, Kansas. Beyond the obstacles posed by the community’s reception, he’s shaken by his own arrogance. The town spurs memories of his small-town upbringing, and past and present each pose their own challenges.
It’s a largely internal struggle, as Capote tries to find resources in himself not only to reach out to the people of Garden City but to do them justice. His literary ambitions lose ground in face of the quiet dignity of his subjects. He gradually learns to modulate his approach, but there’s nothing opportunistic about it. It’s a subtle, sincere transformation, very engrossingly portrayed.
Samnee’s illustrations are perfect for this kind of material. Sometimes, black and white can be more effective than a full palette, and I think that’s the case here. Samnee is deft in his use of shadows, and his sense of composition is terrific. He has a particular knack for facial expressions, capturing Capote’s wry twinkle or a citizen’s crumpled mask of grief.
For all of the scope of the events covered in Capote in Kansas – literary genius, horrifying violence, and so on — Parks never indulges in sensationalism, focusing instead on the complex, deeply personal emotions that inform these events. It’s a surprising approach, and Parks and Samnee execute it beautifully. It’s one of the best graphic novels I’ve read this year.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by Oni Press.)
