How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The eldest daughter, Eveanna, […] lived in northern Illinois but visited frequently. Indeed, she and her family were expected within the fortnight, for her parents planned a sizable Thanksgiving reunion of the Clutter clan […]; fifty-odd kinfolk had been asked, several of whom would be traveling from places as far away as Palatka, Florida. (1.7)
Capote is setting the stage for us about this close, happy extended Clutter family. How could anything bad happen to such a solid bunch? Relatives traveled from far away just to see them, and we can almost see the bunch of them sitting around looking like a Norman Rockwell painting.
Quote #2
When she had first appeared in Holcomb, a melancholy, imaginative child, willowy and wan and sensitive, then eight, a year younger than Nancy, the Clutters had so ardently adopted her that the fatherless little girl from California soon came to seem like a member of the family. (1.55)
Sue Kidwell's family was different: her father had abandoned them and she was being raised by her mother. So we see a different family structure here, along with a description of another definition of family that includes friends that you love.
Quote #3
The only daughter of a prosperous wheat grower named Fox, the adored sister of three older brothers, she had not been spoiled but spared, led to suppose that life was a sequence of agreeable events—Kansas autumns, California summers, a round of teacup gifts. (1.86)
Sounds like Bonnie Clutter had led a pretty charmed life as a kid, plus she landed the dashing Herb. Don't you love the irony: "a series of agreeable events?" Poor, poor Bonnie. Still, this is another of Capote's suggestions that, with a loving family, all things seem possible.