I originally wrote this blog post when Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, died at age 89 in 2016. I am repeating it (with some edits and editions) because of my belief that writers can make a difference.
I am thinking of the publication of Margaret Atwood's
The Testaments last week. Her classic
The Handmaid's Tale has become a must-read book.
We never expected a sequel, but we received one last week.
Some years ago, there was another unexpected sequel by someone else, a sequel to a beloved book.
My tribute to Harper Lee (with some edits), who wrote one of the most beloved books of the 20th century, follows:
Few things in life are simple.
At first, it was a legend written so perfectly. If she had tried, she couldn't have written it more perfectly.
The story seems simple on the surface A woman grows up in a small Alabama town, the daughter of a lawyer. She is the youngest of four children. She had an older sister who becomes, herself, a prominent lawyer in Alabama and
lived to the age of 103.
Working in dead end jobs, she writes a book. An editor works with her,
and after much hard work and rewriting, it is published in 1960. The
book is an immediate classic. It wins the Pulitzer Prize. It is made
into a hit movie.
In the years after it was published, it is called the book that unites
Americans. It is read and enjoyed year after year. It becomes required
reading in many high school classes, including in Alabama.
People name their children after the main characters: Atticus, Scout.
We all know that books can,
and have changed the world.
Many authors can aspire to be the writers of one of those books. Few succeed.
The author becomes a recluse, rarely giving interviews. She spends her
life in that small Alabama town. Her sister, the lawyer, becomes her
spokesperson.
She was so protective of her privacy she would rarely give interviews. She never published another book...until she did.
Her story was neatly tied up and presented to an adoring public. It
made sense-if you write a classic as your first book, how can you follow
with something even better?
The book, which took place in the Alabama of the 1930's (during the
Depression), can be enjoyed on so many levels. On the simplest level,
it's the coming-of-age story of a young girl being raised, with her
brother, by a single father, a lawyer. He takes on the case of a black
man accused of raping a white girl. Her life is changed forever.
And then, last year, it all changed. An announcement was made that
there was a second book - and it would be published later in the year.
It was a sequel to the first book, the American classic. But, once the
first chapter was released, many people were stunned. The book, many
believe, was actually an early draft of the classic. And, still others
believed that the author, then in her late 80's, was being taken
advantage of. She was, after all, in assisted living, having suffered a
stroke almost 10 years ago. She was said to have been nearly deaf and
blind.
The neatly tied box of the author's life reopened. Things were no
longer neat and clean. Her literacy legacy would now be complex.
Perhaps it always was - we just liked to hear the legend we had become
used to hearing.
Yesterday, the author died.
I am talking, of course, of an 89 year old woman, Nelle Harper Lee, of
that small town in Alabama. Harper Lee, as she was known to the world,
has left a complicated legacy. (I suspect it may get even more complicated in the coming days. We'll see.)
All of us who write hope to write THE BOOK, the book that will change the world for the better.
What we don't realize is that the book changes us just as much.
But still, I can wish to write that book one day.
In the meantime, I will content myself with my love of To Kill a
Mockingbird. And if you wonder, why the title, it is explained in the
book like this to the main character, the young girl Scout:
“Remember
it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever
heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss
Maudie about it.
“Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t
do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their
hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
So that I what I blogged in 2016. Now, an update.
Once again, we have a sequel to a beloved and important book.
One book takes place in the 1930's. Another one takes place in our future.
Today, I root for Margaret Atwood, and The Testaments. We live in dangerous times once again. I can hope that the pen is mightier than the sword of ignorance and hate.
Will The Testaments be that tool? Will it be a sequel never meant to be that fulfills its mission?
Only time will tell.
