For people who enjoy true crime, this often feels like a must read because of it being so commonplace in popular culture; the crimes are more than a half-century old, they took place in such a sleepy part of the United States, and yet so many people are well-aware of this book and Truman Capote. It's intriguing how important this book was.

But, for today, it has some other interesting aspects. There are so many pieces of it that remind me of arguments taking place in a modern context. Capote probably wasn't aware of what would become interesting 50 or so years later. The descriptions of Dick Hickock by people in the community that he grew up in. His parents describe him as a "good boy," trying to say that it was the fault of a car accident that he became what he was; you see a few mentions of people in the community saying that Dick was never good, but they never would press charges for the respect they had for his parents. Perry never gets that treatment; you never see that.

There is also a great indication of how we've developed a discourse regarding mental health in the legal profession. That's an interesting aspect of the history that provides an interesting context of how we've gotten to where we are.