Truman Capote had a troubled childhood but he ensured that the pain he internalized in his childhood sharpens his skill as a writer and bares itself in his storytelling. In her iconic book To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee, a friend and confidant of Capote, shows us a sliver of his life through the character of Dill. His loneliness and suffering leaves a trace of tear in Lee’s work. By the age of eleven, Capote was writing fiction with dexterity of a much older person.

In his much loved novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was adapted by George Axelrod (writer) and Blake Edwards (director) for screen with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. Although a dozen socialites claimed to be the inspiration for Holly, there were similarities in the inherited traumas of Holly and Truman himself. Looking at it from a third person point of view, the writer/narrator, was a brilliant choice for a narrative choice. There was a sense of abandon, lack of judgment and some empathy toward Holly that elevated the story to a new level.

Holly is interpreted as a American geisha. Her life, as much convoluted it might seem, desires of simpler things. She ran away from the simplicity of her native for the charm of bigger town, in her spirit she is still a simpler person. The contradiction surfaced beautifully as the narrator peeled the layers of her personality and gets juxtaposed well next to Capote’s personal life underlining his desires and conflicts. Through Holly, Capote tells us about his pain and his forlornness, leaving behind a message that all the glitter and shine of the material world cannot overshadow the haunting loneliness of the soul just like the title suggest metaphorically.

As a writer, if I am blessed enough to devise a moment like this in my lifetime, I would gladly trade it for all I have. Over and over again.