Harper, of course, is the reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird, the Pulitzer
Prize winning novel about racial prejudice and social classes in small-town
Alabama in the thirties. Until going into assisted living several years ago,
Harper divided her life between a New York apartment and the house in Alabama
that she shared with her older sister, Alice. (Alice died late in 2014, at the
age of 103; Harper is 88.) Alice, a practicing lawyer into her nineties, was
the first sister to meet Mills, and they rapidly became friendly. According to
Mills, both granted her extensive interviews, told her many things off the
record, and knew she would be writing a book. She went to local restaurants
with them and met their friends.
Mills’ book captivated me and made me curious about Harper
herself as well as about To Kill a
Mockingbird. For some reason I had never read the book, though I had seen
the fine movie with Gregory Peck starring as Atticus Finch, a courageous lawyer
who defied the restrictive customs and bigotry of his town by defending a black
man who was accused of raping a white girl.
(Finch is based on Harper and Alice’s own father.) So, I got the book
from the library and read it along with The
Mockingbird Next Door. Better late
than never—it is wonderful.
For about fifty years readers have wondered why Harper never
wrote another book. She has been somewhat vague about her reasons, alluding to
her abhorrence for publicity and her feeling that she had said what she had to
say in Mockingbird. Those reasons
make perfect sense to me, but few others (including Mills) are satisfied. There
have been many questions about her, many intrusions into her privacy.
In 2011 Harper denied authorizing the Mills book, saying
Mills had befriended her elder sister and then taken advantage of Alice’s
kindness. The story grows murky at that point. Harper had a stroke in 2007; did
her personality or memory change, making her turn against Mills after
encouraging her to write the book? Some acquaintances have said that she is
greatly changed since the stroke; others, that she is as sharp as a tack. Was Harper so weary of publicity that she
reneged on an agreement at the last minute? Or, did Mills actually write far
more about the Lees than they intended?
Last week another surprising twist in the story
appeared. Go Set a Watchman, a manuscript that Harper wrote before Mockingbird, has been discovered. It is similar to Mockingbird, but written from the adult
viewpoint of Scout (Atticus Finch’s daughter). Her editor at Lippincott, Tay Hohoff, persuaded her to revise the
manuscript so that it is told from Scout’s point of view as a child. Some massive
changes must have been needed! Harper has issued a statement (through her
current publisher, HarperCollins, which is rushing the book into print) expressing her delight that it
still exists.
Tonja B. Carter, Harper’s attorney, says the manuscript
came to light as she was going through papers in her office—the office where
Alice had formerly practiced. According to Mills, Alice was organized and
disciplined, but Harper was not. Alice handled Harper’s legal and financial affairs
for many years, and no doubt dealt with Lippincott.
If Hohoff had returned the Go Set a
Watchman manuscript to Harper, Alice would likely have ended up with it. Thinking
Harper might one day regret not writing another novel, Alice might have prudently set it aside
in a file to be opened only after her death. The timing seems suspect to me:
Alice died in late 2014, and the manuscript had turned up earlier that year.
Someone may have assumed Alice was going to die soon and opened the file a bit
early.All of this is my speculation as a veteran mystery reader, of course. I have no connection to the Lee family, and no inside knowledge of the situation. (I did live in the Yorkville area of New York in 1970, when Harper was living there also.) But, what a mystery story! We may never know why Harper chose not to write another book. I rather hope that she has confided her reasons (assuming they amount to more than what she has claimed) to a friend or to a secret journal that can be opened after her own death.
