The Mockingbird Next Door: The war of words surrounding the Harper Lee memoir

Harper Lee wrote one book, but what a universally beloved book it turned out to be. To Kill a Mockingbird was released in July 1960, by JB Lippincott and Co. (which later became a part of HarperCollins Publishers). It won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and in 1962, a film on the book won three Academy Awards. The story of class and social injustice, featuring the tenacious lawyer Atticus Finch and his tomboy daughter Scott, has sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

In July this year, a social media competition #ThisBook created by the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction voted Harper Lee’s novel as the most influential (life-changing) book written by a woman. To Kill a Mockingbird took the top spot, followed by Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. This year, its 54th anniversary year, To Kill a Mockingbird was released as an e-book for the first time. The book, decades later, has never been short on publicity.

The biggest controversy surrounding the book, bigger than rumours that Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote actually wrote it, has to do with the author herself. In July this year, Penguin Press released The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee written by former journalist Marja Mills. The book, which released in India on September 1, is being called an intimate look at the domestic lives of Nelle Harper Lee and her elder sister, former advocate Alice Lee. Today, Alice (102) and Nelle (88) are both in assisted living facilities.

Harper Lee, however, has denied any involvement with the book.

The full statement was published in Entertainment Weekly, along with Mills’ response. The first statement dated, July 14, 2014 states, “Normally, I would not respond to questions about books written on my life. Miss Mills befriended my elderly sister, Alice. It did not take long to discover Marja's true mission; another book about Harper Lee. I was hurt, angry and saddened, but not surprised. I immediately cut off all contact with Miss Mills, leaving town whenever she headed this way…Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood.”

Back in 2011, when Penguin Press announced they had acquired the memoir, Lee denied any involvement. The statement, released on April 27, 2011, said, “Contrary to recent news reports, I have not willingly participated in any book written or to be written by Marja Mills. Neither have I authorised such a book. Any claims otherwise are false.” On her part, Mills has said, “I can only speak to the truth, that Nelle Harper Lee and Alice F. Lee were aware I was writing this book.”

Harper Lee has always remained an intensely private and elusive person. She stopped giving interviews in 1964 and in 2007, after a stroke, she disappeared from public life. Her reclusiveness only served to whet the public’s appetite. There have been many - fans, journalists and writers - who have attempted a peek into her life. Some have made the trip to her home in Monroeville, Alabama. In 2006, Charles J. Shields published Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee and a children’ adaptation called I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee was released in 2008.

Marja Mills of the Chicago Tribune was one of the few to gain access to Harper Lee. In 2001, along with a photographer, she went to Monroeville to talk to the author. In 2004, she took medical leave from the newspaper after being diagnosed with Lupus. She moved in to the house next door to Harper Lee and Alice and stayed there for 18 months, spending a lot of time with the sisters. Together, they would take long drives around town, go out for coffee at McDonald’s and feed the town’s ducks and geese ducks. The sisters reportedly told Mills stories about their father, lawyer AC Lee, the inspiration for Atticus Finch. All the while, with their permission, Mills says, she took notes.

Lee reportedly called Truman Capote a psychopath saying, “Truman lied about people and belittled them as a way of life. He thought the rules that apply to everybody else didn’t apply to him.” Capote and Lee grew up together and collaborated on the former’s In Cold Blood; she immortalized him as Scout’s friend Dill Harris in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The new book has put the reclusive author in the spotlight (that she hates) once again. Did Harper Lee change her mind about cooperating with Mills for her memoir or was Mills at fault for writing a book without the full consent of the party involved? The debate rages on. As a fan of the book, this may be a dispute that can only be solved by one person: Atticus Finch.