To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of the best loved novels of the twentieth century. But for the last fifty years, the novel's celebrated author, Harper Lee, has said almost nothing on the record. Journalists have trekked to her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee, known to her friends as Nelle, has lived with her sister, Alice, for decades, trying and failing to get an interview with the author. But in 2001, the Lee sisters opened their door to Chicago Tribune journalist Marja Mills. It was the beginning of a long conversation - and a great friendship.
In 2004, with the Lees' blessing, Mills moved into the house next door to the sisters. She spent the next eighteen months there, sharing coffee at McDonalds and trips to the Laundromat with Nelle, feeding the ducks and going out for catfish supper with the sisters, and exploring all over lower Alabama with the Lees' inner circle of friends.
Nelle shared her love of history, literature, and the Southern way of life with Mills, as well as her keen sense of how journalism should be practised. As the sisters decided to let Mills tell their story, Nelle helped make sure she was getting the story - and the South - right. Alice, the keeper of the Lee family history, shared the stories of their family.
The Mockingbird Next Door is the story of Mills's friendship with the Lee sisters. It is a testament to the great intelligence, sharp wit, and tremendous storytelling power of these two women, especially that of Nelle.
Mills was given a rare opportunity to know Nelle Harper Lee, to be part of the Lees' life in Alabama, and to hear them reflect on their upbringing, their corner of the Deep South, how To Kill a Mockingbird affected their lives, and why Nelle Harper Lee chose to never write another novel.
Note: On July 14, 2014, the day before publication of this book, Harper Lee issued a statement saying that The Mockingbird Next Door was executed without her cooperation or permission and based on false pretenses. Apparently Lee issued a similar statement back in 2011 when Penguin Press announced that it had acquired the book.
My Take On This Book
This to me this is a superb memoir. It gives us the description of the lives of the Lee sisters, Nelle Harper Lee and Alice Finch Lee, of their family, their parents, their friends, their education, their livelihood and their personalities. It is about their past and their present as narrated to Mills.
Books and reading are very important in the lives of Nelle and Alice even when they were children. Remember Scout Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird? Her teacher scolded her and accused her of lying when Scout told her that she read a lot at home at the time when she just started schooling. That was Nelle's childhood too. She was a child who read a lot and who thrived on books. Nelle described her early reading life, in a July 2006 letter to Oprah, that ran in O, The Oprah Magazine that began "Dear Oprah, Do you remember when you learned to read, or like me, can you not even remember a time when you didn't know how?"
Another quote from the book which I adore "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it."
Then there is the million dollar question of why she never wrote anything else after To Kill A Mockingbird? A lot of people were guessing for the reasons starting with, for example, the difficulty of living up to the impossible expectations raised by To Kill A Mockingbird. But according to one time pastor and long time friend Thomas Lane Butts, Nelle gave two reasons for that. First, she wouldn't go through all the pressure and publicity she went through with Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, she has said what she wanted to say and she will not say it again. The second reason is a bit vague to me however. Marja Mills stated in the book that love of money and the things it can buy didn't motivate Nelle. She just wasn't interested in luxury, though she did value the opportunity to give bountiful sums to charity and to educate people behind the scenes.
It is quite clear from the book that there was a strong friendship between Marja Mills and the Lee sisters as she interviewed the sisters for her Chicago Tribune articles as well as when she moved into the house next door to the Lees and stayed there for eighteen months. Mills even came back for visits to Monroeville quite often, even after Nelle was placed into an assisted living centre, after suffering from a serious stroke in February 2007. It is a bit puzzling to me, that Harper Lee later issued a statement that the book was executed without her cooperation and permission, just before the publication of the book in 2014.
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