Posted on 07/12/2010 11:26:04 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Reclusive author talks to Mail on Sunday for 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, but reporter had to promise not to mention her Pulitzer-winning novel:
Along with Thomas Pynchon and the late JD Salinger, Harper Lee is one of the world's most famous literary recluses. But the author of To Kill a Mockingbird has been tempted out of her self-imposed isolation – by none other than the Mail on Sunday.
Admittedly, Lee – who is now 84 and lives in sheltered housing in her childhood home of Monroeville, Alabama – gave away very little to the reporter, who had to promise not to mention her Pulitzer prize-winning story of racism in the American south, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year..
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Thu 8 Nov 2007 At a White House ceremony this week, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author Harper Lee. Bush praised Lee’s 1961 book, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD as a “gift to the entire world” and one that “has influenced the character of our country for the better.
I know you’re just awaiting this with baited breath. ;-)
Truman Capote is the real author of To Kill a Mockingird. . BTW, she never wrote anything else.
Everything the Liberals cherish is a lie.
How do you know that truman Capote wrote it??
This has long been a rumor but not proved.
Harper Lee was Capote’s “secretary” and traveling companion when he wrote In Cold Blood.
To be fair though: if Truman Capote did indeed write it for Harper Lee, he clearly meant it to be hers. We should respect that.
Whoever wrote it, it is a great novel about childhood and a vanished world (with both evil and good in it).
If people abroad only see THIS stuff, (I suspect SOME don't see anything else) then we are all a bunch of illiterate, in-bred, knuckle-scraping brutes... just like the worst racist nitwit in the most overrated, self-consciously homespun yarn ever produced.
Racism existed in the US ... it was never wall-to-wall and is isn't now. I am sick of being represented to the world in this way.
To be fair again, he claimed many times publicly to have written the majority of the book, but by that time many (liberal) people stopped listening to the old washed up dandy.
To be fair again, many of the metaphors in the book are clearly Trunmanesque , IMO, even down to the title. . But I guess thats water under the bridge.
I don’t know about the true authorship of the novel and don’t really care. Husband was doing research recently on a totally unrelated subject, and he came across a story about a black man in Arizona in the 1920s. The man was accused of a heinous crime and would become the first black man hanged by the state of Arizona. One of the lawyers in the case was a man named Mr. Atticus. The similarities between the cases were rather interesting. It just so happened that husband was reading To Kill a Mockingbird when he saw these news stories. (one of our children had to read it. book was put down on floor in bathroom. husband picked it up. lol) Anywho, husband was struck by the similarities but was busy with other things that he happened to be researching. I don’t know if he found the stories in Phoenix newspapers or what.
“Truman Capote is the real author of To Kill a Mockingird. . BTW, she never wrote anything else.”
Proof of this claim, please? I’m googling your statement, but if you’d like to offer backup, it would be appreciated.
Letter Puts End to Persistent ‘Mockingbird’ Rumor
March 3, 2006 New evidence may end the decades-old speculation that Truman Capote — not Harper Lee — wrote the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Dr. Wayne Flynt, retired professor of history from Auburn University discusses the basis for the persistent rumor and explains why it is indeed false.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I’m Melissa Block.
In the decades since Harper Lee published TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in 1960, her novel has been shadowed by a persistent rumor. The speculation has been that Lee’s long time friend Truman Capote either wrote or heavily edited the book, which would go on to be a bestseller and win the Pulitzer Prize.
Well, now a letter from Truman Capote to his aunt, dated July 9, 1959, should help put that rumor to rest. Joining us to talk about it is Wayne Flynt. He is a retired history professor at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. And he has researched the writings of both Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Welcome.
Dr. WAYNE FLYNT (Auburn University): Thank you.
BLOCK: Let’s talk first about this letter from Truman Capote. It’s now been made public. It was, as I understand it, given to a museum from a cousin of Mr. Capote. What does it say and how does it help quash this rumor?
Dr. FLYNT: Essentially, it says that a year before the novel was published in July of 1960, that Capote had seen the novel, had read much of the book, and liked it very much, and commented that she has great talent. And nowhere in the letter does he claim any involvement whatsoever in the book.
BLOCK: And by saying that he’s seen it would appear to put some distance at least with it?
Dr. FLYNT: That’s correct. That’s correct.
BLOCK: How did this rumor get started in the first place?
Dr. FLYNT: Well, some claim Pearl Belle, who is a literary critic and editor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has actually claimed that Capote implied to her that he had written the book or had a good deal to do with the writing of the book. I think probably the rumor results from the fact that TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is the only published book that Harper Lee ever did.
BLOCK: Yeah, that that would fuel it. In other words, she was one and done, and if she were such a great writer, why wouldn’t she keep writing great books?
Dr. FLYNT: Exactly. Which basically judges her by the standards of our own culture, which is once you’ve got a taste of fame and fortune, why in the world wouldn’t you continue it?
BLOCK: If you look closely at TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and the writing of Truman Capote, do you see anyway that Truman Capote could have written TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD?
Dr. FLYNT: No. The voice of the characters in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a totally different literary voice. Some have claimed that he’s so brilliant that he could have simply assumed the voice of his good friend Harper Lee. I don’t believe that for a minute. Writers simply don’t assume another voice, another persona, another kind of literary style......
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244492
I’ve read at least three books by Truman Capote, and I’ve read “Mockingbird.”
I don’t believe for a moment that Capote wrote “Mockingbird.”
Did he? I had this idea of a romantic gift from Truman to Harper - and that might still be true I suppose - but if he's publicly claimed authorship then that does rather clinch the matter. Because the style is his.
So when Ted Sorenson wrote Profiles in Courage for JFK, we should call it John’s work? And when Ayers (or whoever) wrote Obama’s book, so on and so forth?
If he claimed that many times publicly, cite them.
Racism exists all over the world. It’s just a form of hatred, which is a form of murder.
In Africa blacks kill other blacks for being of a different tribe. They can distinguish between nose shapes and shades of brown.
This is not to excuse it. Just to admit it is a terrible part of the human condition.
Great books like “Mockingbird” help to confront it to a degree. Great movies, too, I might add. It was an excellent movie.
Take away the book and what would you have to talk about with her?
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