In Bonnie Golightly's 1959 novel Beat Girl, Chloe Longtree, a quick-witted, wealthy, seventeen-year-old orphan, sets out to establish herself in New York City. Confident but vulnerable, she searches from the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village for "Beautiful People." The deception and disappointment she encounters, although harsh, are steps toward empowerment in this poignant and funny work.

This edition of Beat Girl contains a rare profile of Bonnie Golightly based in part on an extensive interview conducted with her shortly before her death.

Bonnie Golightly (1919-1998) grew up in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and moved to New York's Greenwich Village in the 1950s, where she owned a used bookstore and lived among a group of artists and writers. Golightly published twenty books, including the novels The Wild One, Beat Girl, and The Integration of Maybelle Brown; movie novelizations, some under pseudonyms; and books about the paranormal and sexuality. She is famous for claiming, in a failed lawsuit, that Truman Capote based the character of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's on her.