Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2024
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities
Abstract
In 1966, exactly fifty years before Hillary Clinton vilified middle America as racist, sexist and all the rest, Diana Trilling poured scorn on the “virtuous, substantial, Republican, churchgoing, civicminded citizens of the Middle West” in a commentary on In Cold Blood (1965) in Partisan Review. Not only, however, did Diana Trilling deride these citizens. She held one of them in particular, Herbert Clutter of Holcomb, Kansas, responsible for the murder of his own family even though he was murdered himself. How was it possible to arrive at such a perverse reading of Capote’s “nonfiction novel”? This essay argues that the reading in question, issuing as it does from the capital of psychoanalysis (New York City), reflects an insular contempt of the American heartland.
Rights
© 2024 Stewart Justman
Recommended Citation
Justman, Stewart, "A Case of Insularity: Diana Trilling on In Cold Blood" (2024). Global Humanities and Religions Faculty Publications. 19.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/libstudies_pubs/19