"There's always something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed" in Capote's opinion

by Minnie Apolis

Have been reading through this book called “Conversations with Capote” this weekend, and came across this part where he veers off into a bit of a tangent about tattoos. The interviewer is Lawrence Grobel, and the book came out in 1985.

GROBEL: I know magazines have asked you to write about the multiple murderer. Why haven't you?
CAPOTE: I started one particular piece. It was called “Darker Corridors: Opinions on the Mind of the Multiple Murderer.” But I'm not sure I'm going to finish it. I certainly have my opinions on the mind of the multiple murderer. I knew over four hundred of them. Everybody has their field. My field is the multiple murderer.

GROBEL: Is there anything they all have in common?
CAPOTE: I'm not going to go into that now. There is one thing that eighty percent of them have in common, and it's the only thing I'll tell you. Eighty percent of multiple murderers have tattoos. Interview after interview after interview, the person always turned out to be tattooed, either a little bit or a lot.

GROBEL: So when you see someone with a tattoo, stay away?
CAPOTE: you should do that for a lot of reasons. There's something really the matter with most people who wear tattoos. There's at least some terrible story. I know from experience that there's always something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed, above some little something that Johnny had done in the Navy, even though that's a bad sign.

GROBEL: What about the Japanese who are tattooed from head to foot? Is that a whole other thing?
CAPOTE: It's terrible. Psychologically it's crazy. Most people who are tattooed, it's the sign of some feeling of inferiority, they're trying to establish some macho identification for themselves.

GROBEL: Have you known many Jewish multiple murderers with tattoos?
CAPOTE: They're rarer than most. Not as gangsters, Jewish gangsters are just as prevalent as Italian gangsters.
GROBEL: Did you know that a Jew with a tattoo cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery?
CAPOTE: I didn't know that. (Pauses, thinking.) That's fascinating. I'm glad you told me that. I wish I had know that a long time ago. *



Truman Capote was of course most famous for writing “In Cold Blood” which was billed as a nonfiction novel, detailing the story of the infamous murder of the Clutter family. Capote took six years to interview the two perpetrators and follow their legal battles against the death penalty for their crimes. In the book quoted from, he shares many controversial stories about him and his opinions of various classic and modern authors.

As for tattoos, I know that several Viners have mentioned tattoos that they have – Marine is one of them. I guess most people expect certain groups of people to have tattoos: ex-Marines, bikers, some rock performers. Maybe some criminals who get symbols related to gang life, such as for the number of people killed, or for having done prison time.

And I know, it is goofy to have Capote say that something is psychologically crazy – it isn't like he didn't have his own demons.

My question is, does having a tattoo related to some loss or traumatic event make it harder to recover from that loss or traumatic event? In other words, does a tattoo tie you to a painful past – preventing you from moving on?

[I think we can omit the tattoos that are acquired while one in the military, or soon after one is mustered out from the military. I think they are not related to the trauma-related iconography that many people choose. Like Sean Connery got his tattoo while in the British Navy – “Scotland Forever” is on one arm. Makeup artists cover it for any film role he does. ]

I do not have a tattoo and have no plans to do so. It was just very low on my to-do list. I knew of acquaintances who went out and got a tattoo like some people get a new CD or DVD. You choose a symbol – a rose or a Japanese character, say – and twenty years later it doesn't mean the same thing to you at all. You are lucky if it means anything more than that you were a stupid twenty-year-old.

• SOURCE: Conversations with Capote, by Lawrence Grobel, forward by James A. Michener, New American Library (Penguin and Signet editions), New York, 1985.