Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1958 novella written by Truman Capote which became even more well known with the hit 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard.
Wikipedia (
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"The novella tells the story of a one-year (autumn 1943 to autumn 1944) friendship between Holly Golightly, and an unnamed narrator. The two are both tenants in a brownstone apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Holly Golightly (age 18-19) is a country girl turned New York café society girl. As such, she carouses and entertains all the rich men she can find, hoping to snag one as a marriage partner. According to Capote, Golightly is not "precisely" a call-girl or a prostitute but rather one of "the authentic American geishas." Holly, who likes to stun people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoints on various topics, slowly reveals herself to the narrator who finds himself fascinated by her curious lifestyle. In the end Holly fears that she will never know what is really hers until after she has thrown it away."
The actual Tiffany's store plays a minor role as a backdrop to the action...but is referred to several times. Holly is seen in at least one chapter strolling along Fifth Avenue window shopping... presumably Tiffany's was one of the stops. There is also a reference to the character Paul buying a St. Christopher medal there for Holly.
This website (
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"Tiffany's, the jewelry store for which the novel is named, plays an important part in the life of Holly Golightly. It is the only thing that can cure her of the "mean reds", a state of anxiety that is worse than just fear. The narrator first likens Holly's nicknamed depression with the blues, but Holly assures him that they are not the same thing. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is." The narrator, always insightful, calls it angst and says that everyone feels that ways sometimes. By whatever name he wants to call it, Holly asks the narrator what he uses as a cure. He says that a drink usually helps him, but Holly spurns the use of drugs (marijuana is Rusty's suggestion) including aspirin to cure her of the mean reds. "What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's," Holly says. Her sweet innocence and search for a home are revealed in this early scene which shows Holly's naïveté about the world. "It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets."
Holly's goal in life is to find a real place like Tiffany's, a place where she can belong. Holly mentions that she dreams of settling down, perhaps in Mexico, with her older brother, Fred. But again, when she feels like she is revealing too much about her past she pushes up her dark glasses and changes the subject. Her brother Fred is very important to her, one of the only people she truly cares for. Yet, when she talks about him it is like the rest of her past, whitewashed and unclear. She only mentions that he is a soldier, fighting overseas in the war. On the first night that Holly came to visit the narrator in his apartment she ends up sleeping beside him, showing that Holly needs someone who is comforting instead of lusting toward her. Holly fast falls asleep, but the narrator lies awake, watching her. When the sun begins to rise Holly grips the narrator's arm: "Poor Fred," she said in her sleep. "Where are you, Fred? Because it's cold. There's snow in the wind." When the narrator wakes her because she has tears streaming down her face, she runs out of his apartment, again throwing up a brick wall. "Oh, for God's sake," she says having realized that she let some of her feelings come out. She yells at the narrator before leaving though the fire escape, "I hate snoops."