Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

 This is a novella by Truman Capote, and since I was a fan of the film and Audrey Hepburn - I wanted to read the book.  It turns out the book is much better than the movie, even for Hepburn fans. I didn't understand from the movie that Holly is actually a call girl/high end prostitute, in a way, merging that role with a socialite.  Also I didn't realize that she was supposed to be 20 years old, as Hepburn was older when she played the role.  Capote said that his model for the character was blond, and he preferred if Marylin Monroe got the part.

Capote says that Holly Golightly is not a prostitute, but an American Geisha, though that distinction is largely lost in the 21st century.  Holly mentions that she slept with 11 men by the age 19, and that's without counting what happened before she was 13. 

Capote's language is beautiful, flowing, simple, yet conversational and full of slang and color.  I had to look up some terms, as the 1940s were a long time ago.  Completely opposite of the language William Gibson uses, so sparse and technical. 

The book perfectly describes a geisha, from a small town in the South, starving as a child, getting married at 14 to a much older man, but having sex before that.  Eventually she ends up in Holywood, being "sponsored" by O.J., a producer who wants to make an actress out of her and teaches her French.  She elopes for New York City where she becomes a "cafe girl", basically living off the tip money given to her by older, wealthy man, who claim to be in love with her.

The unnamed narrator lives in the same brownstone with her, and becomes her helper and confidant.  Eventually there is a scandal where she was transmitting information from a mobster in jail and she loses her Brazilian sponsor.  She goes to Brazil anyway and months later she sends the narrator a letter from Buenos Aires where she is "accompanying" an old rich man who is married and has seven children. After that the narrator doesn't here anything about her.

The novel is much more realistic and life-like than the movie, which changed several major plots and completely removed some others.  The narrator never ends up with Holly in the end like in the movie and his love is unrequited, which is one of the themes of the novel.