Capote’s book “In Cold Blood,” which began, in 1965, as a four-part series for this magazine, was preoccupied both by the peculiarity of human nature and by the vicarious sensations that peculiarity ...

But Capote was adamant that his own blend of “immaculately factual” reportage and fictional techniques represented the discovery of a new form, and this insistence tallied with Capote’s “quest to be ...