It’s fairly common knowledge that the character of Dil in Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” is based on the author’s childhood friend, Truman Capote. (The book is even dedicated to Capote, as I recall). It’s also interesting to note that “Mockingbird” was the only book Harper Lee ever wrote.
My question: did Truman Capote have a hand in actually writing “To Kill A Mockingbird?” I’ve heard rumors to this effect, but never found any evidence in support of it. I guess I’m mostly intrigued by the fact that Lee a) wrote only a single book in her life, which turned out to be a classic, and b)had such a talented writer as a very close friend.
I haven’t heard this one. To my eye, at least, Lee’s style is nothing like Capote’s, to say nothing of the quality of the prose. That’s not to say she never asked him to read it over and make suggestions. Maybe he did and some were used.
BTW, Lee helped Capote interview townspeople for In Cold Blood.
The boy who lives next door, or rather, visits his aunt Rachel who lives next door to the Finches. He helps Scout come up with the idea to make Boo Radley leave his house.
I had forgotten all about that great story.
I’m going to read it again, then I’ll give you my answer. Not my opinion.
It does make sense though, that such a close friend would help out on her first novel.
Peace,
mangeorge
Now that’s pretty interesting. Dil is such a little cynic in that wonderful, wonderful story–I’m going back and reading it again, too.
However, Truman has never seemed to be particularly shy about speaking his mind–anyone ever see that quote where he trashed Anthony Perkins for being a sexual predator while coyly pretending he wasn’t sure if he was gay? It’s ruthless. I’m not sure he’d keep mum about such a thing. Then again, if they were pals, who knows?
As far as Lee not writing any more novels, that’s not particularly unusual to me. She apparently had money, wasn’t afraid to ditch law school with a semester to go, and wrote regularly for magazines, which used to be a fairly lucrative ticket (remember Fitzgerald?).
Perhaps she knew better than to try to top such an overwhelming success. Salinger never really did before or since Catcher in the Rye (if he really did at all), John K. Toole never published at all, and as much as I love the guy, Joseph Heller never equalled his initial work in the eyes of the public. Furthermore, writing such an autobiographical novel (I dug up some parallels between Scout and Lee) may have mined most of the material she cared to use in her fictional writing.
Heck, at least she wrote one, maybe. All I can do is bitch about how I can’t get any play and use the f-word a lot.
I have heard the speculation about Capote’s involvement (or possible ghost writing) of To Kill a Mockingbird, too. I’ve never seen any evidence one way or the other.
Aren’t there techniques available for determining whether this is likely to be true?
For example, you can take the vocabulary of an author’s known works and compare it to to the vocabulary of suspected works and come up with a pretty good indication. (IIRC, this method has been used with the epistles of the New Testament, to determine which were and which were not likely to have been written by Paul.) Has this method (or similar methods) ever been applied to To Kill a Mockingbird?
