The novel's most memorable character—the irrepressibly merry Sally Bowles—was based upon 19-year-old Jean Ross. Much like the character in the novel, Ross was a bohemian chanteuse in second-rate cabarets, and she underwent a near-fatal abortion facilitated by Isherwood. In his autobiography "Without Stopping", the author Paul Bowles surmised that Isherwood, whom he met in Berlin, borrowed his surname for the character Sally Bowles. Isherwood confirmed this allegation in his 1976 memoir "Christopher and His Kind", writing, " liked the sound of it and also the looks of its owner."