New Harper Lee Biography To Include Unique Perspective

NEW YORK -- A new book about "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee will include a unique perspective: Harper Lee's.

"The Mockingbird Next Door," by former Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills, was written with the cooperation of Lee and her friends and family members. Lee has rarely talked to the media since her only novel made her famous 50 years ago.

Penguin Press announced Tuesday that it had acquired the book but has not set a release date.

According to Penguin, Mills' biography will cover everything from Lee's childhood in Alabama to why she never wrote a second novel.

Comments

[RobtBrock]

10:28 PM on 04/28/2011

I thought it was a picture of Scout in her later years.

[John Dav]

02:05 PM on 04/28/2011

Dan Kennedy's Guardian article got it exactly right: "To Kill a Mockingbird isn't a great book, but it made America a better place."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jul/13/kill-a-mockingbird-atticus-finch-barack-obama

[ufgator18]

12:23 PM on 04/28/2011

I have never understood Authors who write a fantastic book and then get all uptight about it.

(i.e, Margaret Mitchell, Harper Lee, etc.)

[John Dav]

02:02 PM on 04/28/2011

She's bought into her own myth. She's made millions of people who can't tell a good book from a bad one, or at least literature for adults from literature for children. It's quite sad. It's a small wonder she's never given many interviews: it would be hard defending something like that.

[ufgator18]

02:38 PM on 04/28/2011

So, are you saying it's not a good book? I'm not so much of a literary critic to know the difference. I thought it was decent when I read it.

[Fred M White]

08:42 AM on 04/28/2011

Some authors only have one good book in them, and what a magnificent book Ms. Lee gave the world. One of my favorites all time and one of the few wherein the movie measured up. We've heard for years that Mockingbird was somewhat autobiographical and it will be interesting to finally hear her story.

[Steve Lehto]

08:05 AM on 04/28/2011

Turns out she DIDN'T work with the author on this one:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/to-kill-a-mockingbird-author-repudiates-journalists-memoir-about-her/?ref=review

[Howard53545]

05:52 AM on 04/28/2011

Later for this one book wonder. Her life is boring with a capital B.

[John Dav]

03:37 AM on 04/28/2011

You were a one-hit wonder, Harper. You're still a one-hit wonder. Your book was hackneyed and trite then, and it's hackneyed and trite now. Please continue whatever it is you've been doing for the last 50 years and go away.

[nolabear]

11:57 AM on 04/28/2011

Well bless your heart...What kind of petty, closed, simple mind writes such a thing?

[John Dav]

01:58 PM on 04/28/2011

One that can tell the difference between simplistic, feel-good, gooey children's books and novels that actually take the world as something other than a utopian fairytale. You know, someone that actually thinks. I wouldn't expect someone who identifies himself as a "bear" to catch on.

[Soulfest]

02:17 PM on 04/28/2011

"What kind of petty, closed, simple mind writes such a thing?"

In the poster's case that you are asking the question of,
I would glean, a petty, closed and simple minded person...

[Bruce Forbes]

10:34 PM on 04/27/2011

I can't wait to read this. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of my all time favorite books, and Ms. Lee is so enigmatic.

[Tom Sutpen]

04:45 PM on 04/27/2011

Frankly, her greatest contribution to literature was as Truman Capote's research assistant during the writing of 'In Cold Blood'

[Soulfest]

08:30 PM on 04/27/2011

Exactly what I thought while reading this...then I reconsidered, Mockingbird is great too.

[John Dav]

03:37 AM on 04/28/2011

It's glorified children's literature that adults somehow feel compelled to praise. I still wonder why.

[Vivian Alicia Evans]

12:26 AM on 04/28/2011

Thanks for the info. I did not know she was Capote's research assistant.

[John Dav]

03:38 AM on 04/28/2011

*face palm*

[romdrom]

07:04 PM on 04/28/2011

Then you must not realize that Dill in TKAM is patterned after Trumam Capote her childhood friend.