Breakfast At Tiffany's
by Truman Capote
Published by Vintage Books, Random House (Nov. 11 release)(to come)
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Reviewed by Claire Vath
You know those days when you get the mean reds? The blues are because you’re getting fat or because it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible.
Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?” I did, in fact, have that feeling the day it arrived on my doorstep. It was the first day of fall, and rather than going to Tiffany’s to recoup, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, my dear friend, came to me.
The true test of a classic is its ability to hold up over time. I was introduced to Summer Crossing as I wound my way through rural Alabama—near Capote’s childhood home, no less. And I spent Hurricane George ensconced in The Grass Harp. In high school I tried to dye my hair to look like Holly Golightly’s, and I plucked warm chestnuts from the hands of the old woman in “A Christmas Memory.”
Capote’s masterpiece, Breakfast at Tiffany’s transcends time. His skinny, streaky-haired country-bumpkin-cum-socialite, Holly Golightly, is one of the most recognized names in pop culture. Now
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is being reissued for its 50th anniversary.
While rereading, the loquacious Mr. Capote transports us back in time with his writing—back to the era of old-world glamour with cocktail hours, powder rooms, tawdry parties and old New York. A place where the Lindsey Lohans and Britney Spears’ were traded for Audreys, Marilyns, Jackies and Graces.
The novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and its short-story counterparts—“House of Flowers,” “A Diamond Guitar” and “A Christmas Memory”—are each chock full of beautifully strung-together words.
Each of Capote’s stories is an ode to its place and time, making a reader nostalgic for things they’ve only read. Perhaps Capote’s stories resonate because they’re so dead-on in capturing the human condition.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is still a deliciously stunning morsel of literature. Though the ending is not as bright as the movie version, the real tragedy is that the story has to end at all.
Armchair Interviews says: 50 years old and still stunning.