In Cold Blood and changing perspectives on art

I read Tuman Capote's In Cold Blood for AP English in High School. The only thing I can remember from reading it at that time is the description of the killers, Dick and Perry, violently murdering the Clutter family. A depiction of graphic, unimaginable, violence that makes up very little of the book all things considered. For years it was simply the book "with those murders". I remember being bored for a lot of it, finding the pages upon pages of letters, descriptions, stories, and scene setting to be "quite dull". I finished reading the book because it was an assignment in class, but at the time I think I would have put it down maybe half way though if it wasn't compulsory.

One of my favorite things in life is returning to art and media that I bounced off when I was younger. It's tough to understand how your life experiences compound to make you a different person, but I've found that revisiting books and movies that I didn't like in the past is a great way to see how my perspective has changed over time. So, roughly ten years later, I've come back to In Cold Blood. 

Instead of it being "the murder book", I've found a compassionate story that has endless time for the actual people directly and indirectly affected by the vicious murders. Letters from one of the killer's family members are published in their entirety, people with no direct connection to the murder, or indeed, no real stake in the story are given a page or more of backstory, the two killers are painted on the page with such empathy and depth that in certain sections of the book they come across as down-on-their-luck drifters and not violent criminals. It's a book that understands how complicated humans and the systems we live in are without losing sight of the shocking brutality of the actual crime. To cut this down to "True Crime" feels like an injustice.

Finding all this from a book I reluctantly finished reading for a High School class is why I love revisiting art! There's a wonderful sense of growth and discovery that makes me feel almost vindicated in my life. I frequently wonder about the experiences I've had, whether they've been "enough", whether I've actually changed, whether I can change at all. But coming back to art like in this case with In Cold Blood and finding so much more than I initially did, finding new ways to appreciate not just the writing, but the people in the story, well it makes everything feel worth it again.