Besties With Truman Capote
The neighbor boy Dull was inspired by Capote. As a child, Lee lived next door to Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. They played together, and Lee even shared her typewriter with him. It only makes sense she modeled a character in the book after him.
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Both kids were in the outskirts of the social circles in their close-knit Southern town. As Gerald Clarke stated in Capote: A Biography, “Nelle was too rough for most other girls, and Truman was too soft for most other boys.” Capote’s first novel, Other Voice, Other Rooms, includes a tomboy character named Idabel Thompkins who resembles Harper Lee.