11 Insights into Truman Capote’s Unfinished Masterpiece, ‘Answered Prayers’

In 1958, Truman Capote began work on a novel called Answered Prayers, inspired by real events. It was meant to trace the journey of a writer navigating through American high society. Capote believed the novel would become his “magnum opus.” However, while other projects, such as the acclaimed Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, were successfully completed, Answered Prayers was never finished. Instead of becoming Capote’s defining work, the long-delayed novel became his undoing, earning a place as one of the most notorious unfinished books in literary history. Here are 11 facts about the novel Capote, who passed away in 1984, never managed to complete.

1. The title Answered Prayers is inspired by a quote from a saint.

The title Answered Prayers comes from a saying attributed to the 16th-century nun Saint Teresa of Avila: “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” According to Capote’s biographer Gerald Clarke, Capote was drawn to this quote because it reflected his own view of the consequences of people getting what they wanted. Clarke explains that Capote found this saying particularly compelling because it matched his “bleak vision of life,” in which fate punishes those it seems to favor by giving them exactly what they desire.

2. Capote was given numerous deadlines and generous advances to finish the novel.

Capote first conceived the idea for Answered Prayers in 1958 and signed a contract with Random House in 1966, agreeing to finish the book by January 1, 1968. He was given a $25,000 advance.

Although Capote missed that initial deadline, he managed to secure an even larger advance with a new deadline—a pattern he would repeat multiple times, ultimately reaching a $1 million deal with a March 1, 1981 deadline (which he also failed to meet).

3. In 1975, he published selected chapters to show that the novel was still in progress.

As time passed, Capote felt compelled to demonstrate that he had made progress on the novel, so he decided to publish some chapters in magazines. The first of these was “Mojave,” which was featured in the June 1975 issue of Esquire.

4. The chapter “La Côte Basque 1965” was inspired by a real New York restaurant.

The next chapter, “La Côte Basque 1965,” was published in the November 1975 issue of Esquire. The chapter was named after a famous French restaurant in New York City that Capote had personally visited. It’s in this setting that the narrator, P. B. Jones, meets his friend, Lady Ina Coolbirth, to gossip about New York’s high society.

5. “La Côte Basque 1965” stirred up a scandal by fictionalizing Capote’s real-life friends.

While “Mojave” had received positive reactions—according to Vanity Fair, “Capote heard nothing but praise from those who read it”; his inner circle was reportedly enamored with it, and even Tennessee Williams offered a compliment—the release of “La Côte Basque 1965” was met with significant controversy. This was partly due to Capote’s decision to base several of the characters on real-life individuals: Although he changed their names, it was obvious who the characters were meant to represent. Many believed that Lady Coolbirth was based on his friend Slim Keith, a view shared by Keith herself. (Capote, however, denied it, asserting, “The truth is, Lady Ina Coolbirth is me!”) The most contentious part of the chapter was Capote’s fictionalization of his close friend Barbara “Babe” Paley and her husband William, who were reimagined as Cleo and Sidney Dillon. This section of the novel depicted William’s alleged infidelities.

6. The chapter also included a fictionalized account of a real murder case.

Another infamous aspect of “La Côte Basque 1965” was its inclusion of a fictionalized version of a real murder. In 1955, businessman William Woodward was shot in his home by his wife Ann, who claimed to have mistaken him for an intruder; however, suspicions lingered that the shooting may have been intentional. Capote embraced this theory in his story: He changed William’s name to David Hopkins but kept Ann’s first name, portraying her as the one responsible for the murder.

7. The real Ann died by suicide shortly before the chapter’s publication.

Just before the chapter was published, Ann Woodward tragically took her own life. While the exact reasons behind her suicide remain unclear, it was widely believed—including by the mother of her late husband—that she had been informed about the forthcoming story, and that this news played a role in her death.

8. After the release of “La Côte Basque 1965,” Capote’s social circle distanced themselves from him.

Capote’s friends were enraged by the story: “Never have you heard such gnashing of teeth, such cries for revenge, such shouts of betrayal and screams of outrage,” gossip columnist Liz Smith wrote. Many, including Slim Keith, cut ties with him, and Capote was particularly devastated that Babe Paley, who was seriously ill, never spoke to him again. It was reported that Capote was seen crying at his house, saying, “I didn’t mean to, I thought they’d come back.”

9. The full manuscript of Answered Prayers has never been located, and it may not have ever truly existed.

After “La Côte Basque 1965,” two more chapters from Answered Prayers were published in Esquire: “Unspoiled Monsters” in May 1976 and “Kate McCloud” in December of the same year. However, the complete book never came to fruition. Following Capote’s death in 1984, his friends searched for the finished manuscript, but no trace of it was ever found.

Many of those who knew Capote believed he had never completed the novel, though his friend Joanne Carson thought it might be hidden in a safe-deposit box somewhere. Carson even claimed Capote had given her the key to the box but failed to disclose its location. Filmmaker Ed Burnough, who directed the documentary The Capote Tapes about the unfinished novel, suggested that Capote may have completed it, but that “one night he got really drunk and something happened to the rest of it. I can easily imagine that, after those excerpts were published, and after the phone stopped ringing, he might have woken up after a wild night and seen pieces of it in the fireplace. That’s what addiction can do to people.”

10. In the late 1980s, Capote’s publishers released an incomplete version of the book.

Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel was published by Random House in the UK in 1986 and in the U.S. in 1987. The book included three of the four chapters that had been previously released, excluding “Mojave,” which Capote had later removed from the original plan for Answered Prayers and incorporated into another book, Music for Chameleons.

The critical reception of the unfinished Answered Prayers at the time of its release was generally unfavorable: Tina Brown, writing in The New York Times, called it a “rubbishy roman a clef” but admitted that there were moments of prose in the book that reminded readers of Capote’s former brilliance. Kirkus Reviews noted that although there were occasional “glimmers of Capote’s storytelling talent,” the overall impression was one of being “shiny and shallow—with nothing to suggest that a completed Answered Prayers would have been anything like a masterpiece.” However, in more recent years, some have argued that the book deserves more appreciation; in 2009, Hilton Als called it “underrated” in The New Yorker.

11. A previously unpublished chapter of Answered Prayers was discovered and made public in 2012.

The question of whether Capote ever finished the full manuscript remains unresolved, but it was revealed in 2012 that more of the work existed than had been known. A story intended for Answered Prayers, titled “Yachts and Things,” was found among Capote’s papers at the New York Public Library. The six-page story was eventually published in the December 2012 issue of Vanity Fair.