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 ...
Sorry, I should have made it more clear that I was referring to the request for proof of the claim for the “BTW, she never wrote anything else” part.
There is no proving that negative. If you only meant proof of the Truman Capote wrote TKAM claim, I don’t think that is something that will ever be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt one way or the other. But if we’re talking proof that “BTW, she never wrote anything else”, there is no proving it.
See posts 76 & 78.
Thanks, that’s the sort of thing I was looking for regarding proof that she wrote something else, vs. proving she didn’t write anything else. And perhaps she wrote many something elses, but that one in particular seems pretty certain.
Read my post 48.
Mitchell did write another book discovered and published after her death. Who knows what might come to light after Lee’s demise.
Well, until 1948 the Smithsonian claimed that Samuel Langley invented the airplane, so they're not infallible.
On the subject, it's difficult to prove authorship, particularly when the two were friends and worked together during the time of authorship. My gut feeling is this:
The book is Lee's work. Capote was likely a sounding board, but in essence, it is Lee's. Capote's In Cold Blood was an excellent book, but it never got the literary acclaim that Lee's book got. As Capote got older, drank more, and became more and more of a joke, I think he wanted to claim some of the adulation. With the possible exception of Breakfast at Tiffany's, most people probably couldn't name a Capote novel except In Cold Blood. For an attention hound like Capote, it must have been galling that his former assistant wrote one book that was considered far more of a classic than anything he ever wrote, and I think he might have been desperate enough to try to grab onto some of that fame.
I had, and see 80, 82, and 83.
Posts #49, 76, & 78 take all the mystery out of who wrote what. It’s no secret.
Dear ...Truman wrote not one line of her book....on the other hand, when she went with him to Kansas to get the material for his book, “In Cold Blood”...he was so spaced out on drugs that she took all the notes, etc. and I'm convinced, wrote a lot of his book....Shortly after they got back, her book was published......and subsequently, his “In Cold Blood”....and her’s won a Pulitzer Prize and he did not, and he was consumed with jealously, which was why he was too petty to give her any credits for her work on “cold blood”...not even a thank you at the front of the book....He was, after all, such a really screaming little queen....Actually, I never liked him very much...though for her sake, I wasn't vocal about it.....He was so petty, that when stupid rumors went out that he's at least partly written her book, he didn't publicly deny it....
‘Huck Finn was much more impactful.’
‘Huckleberry Finn’ was the best American novel of all time. I call that praising by faint damns.
‘Lost Laysen — a romance set in the South Pacific’
A not uncommon mistake for a new writer — writing about something exotic and which you have no empathy for, then writing a good book which you feel internally
Mitchell was 15 or 16 when she wrote Lost Layson. The book includes the nanuscript, pictures and letters she sent to an early suitor.
Mitchell was 15 or 16 when she wrote Lost Layson. The book includes the manuscript, pictures and letters she sent to an early suitor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.