Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, Summary

Initial Thoughts on Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

I have often heard that Truman Capote is an excellent writer who has a unique style of writing, and that Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of his best pieces of writing. Finally, I got around to reading Breakfast at Tiffany's, a novella, and I didn't like it.

And I have never seen the film either, however, I couldn't understand why people think Breakfast at Tiffany's is so amazing. A friend tells me that the story is about romance, and I am thinking, whatever.

I read the Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote a while back, and I had a hard time getting excited about writing the summary.

Have you read the book? Did you enjoy the story?

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What is Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote About?

The unnamed narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s has returned to the neighborhood in which he lived over 15 years ago – during World War II in 1943 – while he was seeking ‘fame and fortune’ as a writer.  He returns to the neighbourhood because Joe Bell, a bartender and mutual friend of Holly Golightly, calls and requests to see him. Joe has news about Holly Golightly, whom they both hadn't seen in a long time.

Mr I Y Yunioshi, a photographer, has taken photographs of an African sculpture that bears the likeness of Holly. The narrator learns that someone looking like Holly, along with two men who were ill, spent several weeks with some tribesmen in Africa before disappearing.

The narrator walks back to the first apartment where he lived in New York. He reminisces about his first year, 1943 – 1944, in New York City, and his friendship with Holly Golightly. When he first meets Holly, she is a 19-year-old prostitute who enjoys hosting and going to parties – she loves to have fun. Holly buzzes Mr I Y Yunioshi to let her into the building until he gets annoyed with her for waking him up all the time at odd hours of the night.

At first, Holly doesn’t pay much attention to the narrator, using him as her key to get into the building. One night, while trying to get away from an unwanted male guest in her apartment, who has had a little too much to drink, she climbs the fire escape and enters the narrator’s room. She decides to call him Fred because her brother Fred is fighting in the war.

While Holly is in his room, she reads some of the aspiring writer’s work. She tells him that she gets paid $100 each week to visit Sally Tomato, New York Mafia, in Sing Sing, a prison. Unknowingly, Holly is transmitting messages for the mafia. When she thinks he is sleeping, she talks to herself and is asking where her brother Fred is, and she starts to cry.

The narrator asks,

“‘Why are you crying?’” She sprang back, sat up. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said, starting for the window and fire escape, ‘I hate snoops.’”

The next day Holly apologizes to the narrator and invites him to her apartment for a drink, when he arrives, a party is in full swing. Quite a few rich and famous are at the party – O J Bergman, a Hollywood agent, millionaire Rusty Trawler and fashion model Mag Wildwood, who is engaged to Brazilian Diplomat, Jose Ybarra-Jaegar. Bergman tells the narrator that Holly is a real phony.

Later, when Holly and the narrator spend a day together, they share stories about their childhood, and then she confesses that she lied. At Christmastime, she gives him a very expensive antique bird cage as a gift, and he gives her a St Christopher’s medal that he purchased from Tiffany & Co, a jewelry store. Holly loves going to Tiffany’s when she is upset because the atmosphere there calms her down and she feels like nothing bad can happen to her when she is in the store.

The following February, Holly, Rusty, Mag and Jose go on vacation where Mag gets badly sunburned, Rusty is injured in a fight, and the two are hospitalized, so Holly and Jose go to Cuba. Mag suspects that Holly and Jose are lovers, but Holly tells her sometimes roommate, that she is a lesbian. At the time that Holly is telling her story to the narrator, she informs him she has passed on his manuscript without his permission, and he is furious. They have a big fight and she tells the narrator to leave her apartment. He leaves the bird cage outside her apartment, and the following morning he finds it in the garbage. He retrieves his gift and takes it back to his apartment.

The two do not speak for months. In the spring, the narrator notices a man lurking around the apartment complex. He learns that the older man, Doc Golightly, is a horse doctor, and Holly’s husband, and that her real name is Lulamae Barnes. Fred and Holly’s parents die, and he takes them in when they are found stealing. Doc marries her when she is 14. One day Holly leaves to go on a walk and never returns.

For the past five years he has been searching for her to no avail, but Fred gives him her address after he receives a letter from her. Holly is fond of Doc Golightly, but she refuses to return to Tulip, Texas, because she likes her freedom. Doc returns home broken hearted.

One day, the narrator learns that Mag and Rusty have wed. When he returns to the apartment that day, he hears a lot of commotion in Holly's apartment. She is upset because she learns Fred died in the war. Jose gets a doctor and moves in with her. Holly becomes very domesticated, cooks and cleans, and gets pregnant. She believes she is in love with Jose and plans to move to Brazil with him.

While Holly and the narrator are out riding one day, some boys spook the narrator’s horse and he falls off. Holly is taking care of him in his apartment when the police burst into the apartment and arrest Holly because of her connection to Sally Tomato.

She has been unknowingly carrying coded messages for him. After she is arrested, the narrators goes to her apartment to feed Holly’s cat, and finds Jose’s cousin packing up his stuff for him. Jose does not want to associate with Holly and her problems. Holly loses her baby because of the altercation with the police.

She flees the country for Brazil while out on bail, and the narrator hears from her once. For a time, the media covers the story until it is old news. The main theme in Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote is the tension between people wanting security and freedom at the same time. Holly Golightly desperately wants to belong, yet she isn’t prepared to be pinned down.

Final Thoughts on Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote is well-written with a strong storyline. But I didn’t enjoy it. I am giving my permission to say that I dislike books, even when they are well-written because reading is personal and I like what I like. I would like to think that I am objective enough to make a distinction.

It is interesting to note that from what I have read, the film adaptation is more popular than the book it is based on, and I am not sure if many people know that the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s is based on a book. Audrey Hepburn has given Holly Golightly cult status. I have also read that the film adaptation differs from the book, but isn’t that the case many times?

Truman Capote Reads From Breakfast At Tiffany's April 7, 1963

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