“The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee”
Author: Marja Mills
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Pages: 278
Price: $27.95 (Hardcover)
Before describing or evaluating this book, one must first express astonishment that it exists at all.
Nelle Harper Lee was overwhelmed by the avalanche of publicity generated by her novel in 1960 and then the film in 1961. Lee became thoroughly irritated when reporters asked endless numbers of times, where is your next book? Since she was willing to say little about her personal life, the paparazzi filled in that void with speculation about her sex life, drinking habits, and finances, how big a role Truman Capote played in the writing of “Mockingbird,” even rumors about her mother’s mental health.
Lee, incensed, retreated, refused all interviews, and appeared at public events only rarely.
We all assumed this long near-silence begun in the middle 60’s would go on to the end, but, not so.
Marja Mills was sent by “The Chicago Tribune” to Monroeville in 2001 to write a piece about the town and the book when “Mockingbird” was chosen by the Chicago Public Library for the “One Book, One Chicago” program.
She wrote ahead to the Lees, explaining her mission, and then with a photographer, Terrence James, she flew to Alabama, drove to Monroeville, toured the town, spoke with a few people and, expecting nothing, knocked on Alice Lee’s front door.
Not only did older sister Alice invite Mills in to chat, the next day Nelle Harper visited Yankee reporter Mills at her motel and their friendship began. Mills visited regularly from 2001 until 2004. “They kept encouraging me to come back South, and on each trip they would share more of their lives with me,” Mills says.
In 2004, with the Lee sisters’ help, she actually moved in two doors down for over a year. The three women became close, talked, fed the ducks at the nearby pond, went fishing for catfish using slices of hot dog for bait, visited the Lees’ many friends, drank coffee at McDonald’s, attended different churches, and took meals at various Monroe County diners and restaurants.
Why, one wonders, did Lee agree?
The Rev. Thomas Butts is quoted: “I don’t know why Alice and Nelle have opened up to you the way they have.” Nelle had always said: “I value my privacy too much.”
The answer appears to be, partly, timing.
On the plus side, the Chicago reading program pleased Lee. On the other, Mills suggests that Lee was fretful over how she would be portrayed in the two Capote films about to be released, and even more agitated about Charles Shields’ forthcoming biography.
She wanted, perhaps, to tell her story or at least part of it and Mills seemed like the right sympathetic listener. Mills used a tape recorder openly and took copious handwritten notes, and a number of Monroevilleans who had been extremely guarded in the past, or refused to speak with journalists in the past were, with Lee’s permission, forthcoming. Some of their conversations were off the record but the contents of this book were not.
Unfortunately, a controversy has erupted in which Nelle Harper Lee claims she never authorized this book or even knew a book was being written. This seems unlikely.
There are numerous scenes where Mills asks Lee if it is OK to include this or that. Usually, the answer is yes, sometimes no. “To her credit,” Mills says, “much of what she wanted off the record was to spare the feelings of a relative or a friend.” Mills adds: “Often, her directive was to use my own judgment.”
Readers wanting a fuller treatment of this disagreement can look at “Entertainment Weekly” of July 14. This article includes copies of letters written by Nelle Harper Lee in 2011 and 2014, but also a letter from Alice Lee stating that Nelle “has no memory” of writing the 2011 letter.
There are no scandalous revelations in this book. Attorney Alice is the gentler soul—steady and friendly. Nelle Harper is a bit more volatile, moody, needing to be handled carefully. Each sister, when asked, says the other “dated” “a little” when younger. There is no shocking news regarding sex, alcohol or anything else—nor was there in the Shields biography—unless playing the slots at a casino is considered shocking.
Lee’s decisions—not to publish another book, to refuse interviews, to appear seldom in public—were “gradual,” arrived at slowly, Mills concludes, not in emotional moments.
Generally reticent, Lee does allow herself one indulgence, in her remarks about Capote. He was “a world class gossip” who “lied about people …and didn’t care whom he hurt.” Truman told people Nelle’s mother tried to drown her—twice!
Lee says: “Truman was a psychopath, honey.”
Mills has produced an affectionate look at the sisters’ life together: their long relationship, many friendships and modest habits. The Lees’ lives were quiet, to say the least. Their house was small. The sisters read a lot.
Nelle likes Faulkner and Welty while Alice favors English history, especially Thomas Babington Macaulay. Both hard of hearing, the sisters like to communicate by fax. They are not involved with the internet or social media. No surprise there; they barely watch the television they got in 1997. They watch Alabama games on TV, use a laundromat in Excel.
Mills learned that the sisters used to travel together occasionally, in the U.S., by train.
Considering the millions generated by “Mockingbird,” some of this might seem eccentric, but it’s nobody’s business but their own.
This review was originally broadcast on Alabama Public Radio. Don Noble is host of the Alabama Public Television literary interview show “Bookmark” and the editor of “A State of Laughter: Comic Fiction from Alabama.”
