Harper Lee Biography Drama Continues

NEW YORK — Harper Lee's sister says the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" has indeed cooperated with a memoir about her. And the publisher has set a release date: fall 2013.

The law firm Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter had released a signed statement last month from Harper Lee disputing an announcement by Penguin Press that Marja Mills' "The Mockingbird Next Door" had been written with "full access" to the media-shy novelist.

But Alice Lee, Harper Lee's sister, is a partner in the firm and said in a signed letter dated May 21 and released Monday by Penguin that the statement was prepared without her knowledge and "does not represent" the feelings of either sister. A woman who answered the phone at Barnett, Bugg declined comment and hung up on a reporter seeking comment.

Comments

[ChrisRoberts]

04:49 PM on 05/24/2011

Is it that the current literary equatation translates: Novel + Pulitzer = Biography? First, the novel. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is certainly a regional tale and yet it is entirely transposed and made unique. The fundamental flaw of the work is patriarch, Atticus Finch. Behold the savior of the down trodden race, raise him high and everlasting, let his name be known across the dark land. The land is dark because Atticus overshadows it, his skills as a lawyer of more import than the man he defends. His family, friends and town are props by which we are to take in the towering moral height of the man. Summed up: "To Kill a Mockingbird" is an exaggerated Norman Rockwell painting.

The Pulitzer Prize should never be awarded to an author of one novel. There needs to be consistency, a track record by which to take measure. A literary biography needs a literary life to fill its pages. Harper Lee, absent from writing these many years, falls quite short.

[John Dav Redux]

11:31 PM on 05/24/2011

Behold the brilliance of ChrisRoberts, HuffPo's resident literary scholar. He has indeed hit upon the correct "equatation."

*face palm*

[ChrisRoberts]

09:25 AM on 05/25/2011

Of course, again, you add nothing to the discussion.

*face fist*