The Mockingbird Sings

For 50 years, Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird—one of the most influential novels of the 20th century for its depiction of racism, provincialism, and the American justice system—has evaded curiosity seekers. Had the famously sharptongued Lee a form response to interview requests, she has said, it would be "Hell no." In 2004, however, she said yes to Marja Mills's request to become her neighbor in The Mockingbird Next Door (Penguin Press). The former Chicago Tribune reporter relives the year and a half she spent in Monroeville, Alabama, riding shotgun with Lee, then 78, and her sparky 93-year-old sister, Alice, through the Deep South, hitting exercise class and McDonald's for coffee, as well as conversing about the effect To Kill a Mockingbird had on their lives, Lee's childhood chum Truman Capote, and whether the author will write again. More important than these answers, however, is the voice of Lee herself— and her message, which we still need to hear.

E.S