Book Reviews – Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Breakfast at Tiffany’s
by Truman Capote

I must confess that I had only seen the movie and thought that I knew this book. Boy, was I wrong.  Published in 1958, this novella is so much more than the film. It’s told through the eyes of an aspiring writer set in New York in the 1940s who begins a friendship with Holly Golightly.  Holly is a beautiful woman with a mysterious past, who lives downstairs in the writer’s apartment block. She is a society girl who spends her time mixing with playboy millionaires and gangsters. Although the writer becomes very close to her, she never reveals her true self. Capote’s colourful writing style and the direct way that he describes his characters would have shocked readers at the time. This edition also includes three short stories – House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory – which are all brilliant in their own right.