For 2024 the aim remains to post a review at least every other Friday and to complete the Bookpacking reading journey.

13 September 2013

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote


The unnamed narrator is looking back a few years to the early 1940s when, newly arrived in New York, he moved into an apartment block and was intrigued by the mail box label for Apartment 2 which declares “Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling”.

The name and the voice on the stairs soon take form in the delightful Holly – petit, short hair, dark glasses perched on up-turned nose, and chic little black dress (in other words Audrey Hepburn) – and he is smitten by the kitten. As other neighbours tire of her charms in the wake of her late night parties, that she either hosts or returns from keyless and demanding entry to the block from anyone she can rouse, he is more than happy to step up to the plate.

Is she just a good time girl, a gold-digger, or something more professional? What is her background? What’s behind her weekly visits to Sally Tomato imprisoned in Sing Sing? The more she reveals the more the less sense it makes.

Told mainly in snappy New York dialogue it’s an engaging portrait of a free spirit in single minded pursuit of the good life, epitomised by having breakfast at Tiffany’s among the diamonds and the rich smells of alligator wallets and silver.

The narrator is not in that league so he shouldn’t have a chance with Holly; but he’s on hand when her fragile confection of a world looks in danger of collapsing.

Little more than a novella in length and format it makes an excellent quick read.

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