What a marvelous article.....one of the few I've read that doesn't seem prurient/prying about Harper Lee.
I just sent your article to my 83 year old cousin, who knew Miss Lee. She approved.
Thanks you for the fine and carefully written (I can tell) article,
David Terry
Quail Roost Farm Road
Rougemont, NC
46
Ever since its producers selfishly went around banning all other productions, I have "banned" the Broadway production of TKaM, and have encouraged others to boycott it too. I don't care if it's good or bad or anywhere in-between, it won't get my dollars.
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Can't wait to read; ordering now... sounds thrilling and sad at the same time.
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Looking forward to reading this!
I just have to put this recommendation here; for any true crime and/or history fans, you must read, "Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder And Memory In Northern Ireland".
Such gripping, well-written, intense storytelling by Patrick Radden Keefe. I didn't want it to end. Probably the best book I've read in the past few years.
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I'd read it in the drop of a dime!
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And God made the world, and said "It is good." And some reader in the NYT said, "So what's for an encore?"
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I've just pre-ordered the audiobook from Audible!
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@Rick Lewis Same here!
4
As we write, Monroeville, AL puts on its annual “To Kill a Mockingbird” production in the courthouse that Harper Lee depicted in her book. It’s a wonderful show to see. How about we celebrate that and let her have peace in her afterlife?
PS: Too bad Broadway had to get greedy with their production. Boycotting it.
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@MIMA
I think the person who got greedy was Tonja Carter.
The Broadway folks, at least, put together a good show that's giving ticket buyers what they pay for.
8
The review piqued my interest in reading "Furious Hours." Will probably order a copy from Amazon.
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@Edie
why not get it from your independent bookstore in albuquerque??
68
Will the literary press never tire of Harper Lee? I'm with Flannery O'Connor, who once observed of Mockingbird, "It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is." And, unkind as it sounds, somebody ought to say what Lee was, a writer who had one solid YA novel in her then dried up for good.
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@Mark Desiderio Dried up? She wrote a book that she wanted to write ( actually two), and stopped. That's not drying up. That's a personal decision. She had no obligation to anyone to provide further literature.
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@Mark Desiderio
“Some people may have only one book in them.”
This can be applied to both Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell.
Of course the latter writer was stopped by her unfortunate encounter with a bus. Nelle, as she was known to friends, whatever kept her from further publishing, she has no need to apologize, as TKAM is far greater literature than GWTW, in far fewer words!
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@Ernest Montague in my defense, I quote the article on which we're commenting: ' “Some people only have one book in them,” she would sometimes explain, in her later years, when in the mood.
But she didn’t always feel that way.'
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