Book Group Notes: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

The Literary Lady’s Book Group Notes are designed to generate discussion at your book group or as a way of enhancing your own reading experience. The discussion points offer a ‘route’ through the book but don’t feel you need to stick too rigidly to it if an interesting topic comes up that needs further discussion!

About the Book

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is the perfect choice for a book group. It is short, entertaining and guaranteed to generate conversation. Your book group will love the idea of escaping to Holly Golightly’s Manhattan for the evening. The book centres around the unnamed narrator as he befriends the eccentric, quirky socialite Holly Golightly. As the story unfolds Capote cuts through the excess and extravagance of Golightly’s lifestyle to reveal deeper issues at play.

Discussion Points:

• Holly and the narrator might be seen as polar opposites. Holly with her hate of cages and tradition represents freedom. The narrator is more reliable and stable. By the end of the novella is there a reversal? Which character did you identify more with?
• Truman Capote said that ‘all literature is gossip.’ In the book we rely on people’s stories about Holly. Can we ever be told a story from an objective viewpoint?
• Critic Paul Levine describes Breakfast at Tiffany’s as a love story of a different nature as its concerned with all forms of love – sexual, homosexual, asexual and spiritual. Do you agree? Which love story did you find most moving?
• Capote remarked that Golightly represents ‘a whole breed of girls who live off men but are not prostitutes. They're our version of the geisha girl.’ What do you make of this assessment? Does Golightly subvert or conform to a gender stereotype?
• How does setting effect the feel of the story? Is New York a character within the novella? Could the story’s setting be relocated to somewhere else?
• Have you see the film version? How does it compare with the book? Which did you prefer? Which was more moving? Do iconic film roles interfere with reading a book that’s been made into a famous film?

Have you read Breakfast at Tiffany’s?