[ReignOfError]

Nobody really knows what what on between the two. Remember, they were friends from the time they were seven or eight years old — or there abouts.

If I were to guess, I’d say he helped her edit — it has that “crisp” New Yorker magazine style.

If I'm working on a book, and I happen to have a close friend who's a best-selling author, I'd certainly bounce drafts off of him.

I think a lot of the speculation about Capote writing Mockingbird comes from the fact that some folks just can't believe that a small-town Southern woman who never wrote another book could have created something that good. Surely her much more famous friend must have been behind the curtain pulling the strings.

Margaret Mitchell never wrote another book, either. One of the rules my mom taught me is that a gentleman, or a lady, always knows when it's time to leave. If you've just got one book in you, and it's a great one, why muddy the waters with mediocre follow-ups and sequels?

[carton253]

You would only bounce drafts off your writer friend if he would let you.

You shouldn't assume that everyone is as generous as you have made your pretend writer.

[durasell]

The whole thing is fascinating and, like I said, interesting to think about. Why would a first time novelist produce sterling prose first time out? Why would a guy who was obsessed by high society start writing about crime in a small town? And why did both of them peak so early?

[miss marmelstein]

I think a lot of the speculation about Capote writing Mockingbird comes from the fact that some folks just can’t believe that a small-town Southern woman...

I also think that some people assume Capote had a hand in it is that it is very much early Capote territory - “The Grass Harp,” etc.

Of course, scuttlebutt has it that Lee wrote “In Cold Blood”!

[durasell]

...and while I’m at it, why did she pay rent on that apartment in NYC for forty years that she never visited?

[veronica]

Capote did not have any hand in writing Mockingbird. In fact, though Harper Lee was his friend, he carried a low-simmering envy that she catapulted to the top of the literary world with this one novel. He is the basis, loosely, for one of the characters in the book however.

I think time has proven that they were equally great writers.