Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella) debt to Christopher Isherwood, one of his mentors, in creating the character of Holly Golightly: ""Breakfast at Tiffany's" is in many ways Capote's personal crystallization of Isherwood's Sally Bowles." Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill notes that Holly is a kindred spirit of Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, the central character of his short story "Children on Their Birthdays". She observes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness." Capote himself acknowledged that Golightly was the favorite of his characters. The novella's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of
Truman Capote delivery date. Capote permitted "Esquire" to publish four chapters of the unfinished novel in 1975 and 1976. The first to appear, "Mojave", ran as a self-contained short story and was favorably received, but the second, "La Côte Basque 1965", based in part on the dysfunctional personal lives of Capote's friends William S. Paley and Babe Paley, generated controversy. Although the issue featuring "La Côte Basque" sold out immediately upon publication, its much-discussed betrayal of confidences alienated Capote from his established base of middle-aged, wealthy female friends, who feared the intimate and often sordid details of their ostensibly glamorous lives would