I agree.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but I’m afraid with today’s series style novels being churned out that this will turn in to “The Mockingbird Chronicles Book II, Scouts Revenge” or something like that.
However, having been re/discovered, leaving it unpublished would vaunt it into the mythical pantheon. Better to publish, make Old Mrs. Lee some bux (along with her publisher) and let it join the first book or perish in the fires of remainder bins.
ETA: There still seems to be some misunderstanding about this book. It was written BEFORE Mockingbird, and the publisher not-quite-rejected it, asking for a different take on Scout’s childhood instead. It was NOT written as a sequel and it most definitely is not some new-genre thing she’s bashed out at a late date.
I agree. Before I was old enough to understand the concepts, Atticus Finch defined the words “Character” and “Honor” for me and became a role model as a man and a father.
I’d read it if it were her list of friends phone numbers.
Yeah, I think if I were Harper Lee, I’d have burned the manuscript just to be on the safe side.
But since I’m me, I’m going to read it.
Truman Capote, author of “Breakfast at Tiffanys”, “In Cold Blood”, and “Other Voices, Other Rooms”? That one?
I think this is really exciting news from an academic perspective – lots of insight into the creative process that gave us TKAM – but I don’t necessarily have high hopes for it as a novel, since it’s a long-unpublished first effort about which the editor seems to have basically said “scrap most of it and turn the good bits into a prequel.” Still, it was a very impressive prequel, so who knows?
I’ve long thought Lee actually wrote In Cold Blood, but let her friend, who wanted to be a celebrity, publish it under his name.
Does anyone remember this thread? Especially starting with post 25.
No, the other one, Truman Persons.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a collection of short works, although the title work barely qualifies as a short novel. OVOR is not much remembered. Capote’s only book-length work of significance is ICB. I think all of his published work would fit comfortably in one rather fat, modern novel-length book.
I find it interesting that both of them are so highly regarded in lit with such very small bodies of work, and even more interesting that they are such a closely coupled (but not married or AFAAK romantically involved) pair.
Well she’s churning them out at a rate of one every half-century or so, so I’m not too worried we’re going to be swamped in Scout novels.
(there a GMM Martin joke somewhere in here)
From everything I’ve read, Harper Lee is blind and deaf and can barely hold a conversation, I have a hard time believing this book has anything to do with her personal wishes.
And there’s even a substantial possibilitythat the manuscript may be something cobbled together by Lee’s lawyer rather than a complete finished work by Lee herself.
Has there been any indication if she has re-read the novel and revised it? Otherwise, I would expect it to be not that great.
Damn, that is sad.
Oh I’m sure the release has nothing to do with money.
I just saw the opportunity for the Spaceballs quote and couldn’t resist
I recall a mention of the love affair between Atticus and Calpurnia.
Significant to whom? Just because you aren’t familiar with his other works (like “The Grass Harp”, or “Summer Crossing”), doesn’t mean other folks aren’t. I mentioned the novella “Breakfast at Tiffanys” because the film made it so well known, and if you know a little bit about Capote, you probably know this work.
He wrote numerous short stories, screenplays (“Beat the Devil”, with Bogart and directed by John Huston, and “The Innocents”, which, I believe, was an adaptation of “The Turning of the Screw”), a musical (“House of Flowers”), and lots of essays (made into three collections) - it’s not just the novels and ICB that are what his career was built on. It’s been about 15 years since I read a biography of him, and I didn’t catch either of the two semi-recent biographical films.
Anywho, I don’t think that Harper and he had a romantic relationship, since he was well known to not play on that team.