Review: Whether you like Nelle Harper Lee or not, you'll never forget her.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2014
Added later:  As everyone knows by now, allegations of this book being unauthorized have surfaced.  I have read the information on that and at this time I do not believe that it is true.  My reason why are at the end of this review.As I read this fascinating story by a writer who came to know Nelle Harper Lee very well over a period of time (5 or 6 years) I would think, "I'm not sure that I would like this woman.  I might like her sister, Alice, better."  and then I would read some more and think, "I really like this woman."  I think that she has probably caused this same kind of confusion and mixed feelings all of her life.  After reading the entire story, I have decided that I would like her, in spite of her idiosyncrasies.  But then, she'd probably say that I am the one with idiosyncrasies!  She would not be shy about stating her opinion, that's for sure.  The book is written in a different style from a lot of biographies, where the writer simply starts at the person's life and progresses forward.  This one is more like a series of visits with friends, where we all get to go along for the ride, too.  It answers some questions that we've all asked, such as why she never wrote another book and why did she use Harper instead of Nelle for her name.  It also answers some that I never thought of asking, such as where did the name Harper come from and what nicknames did she and her sister Alice have.  And no, I won't answer them here; read the book!!  By the end of the book, I felt that it hadn't actually seemed like I read a book.  I felt vaguely like there was something I needed to do to finish.  But then I realized that the book actually felt like a series of visits with friends.  Friends that you didn't actually see; friends that you don't talk back to, but, nevertheless, friends.  Highly intelligent, well-read friends.  I am a "reader" myself, but the amount of books that these two sisters have read is more than some libraries have!  They are very well-read friends, indeed.  So, you ask, is the book good?  If you like the usual biography style; this one may disconcert you, but it's worth the read anyway because you will see the Lee sisters in a way that no other biographer has ever written about and you'll see what formed the woman who wrote the book that many (myself included) feel is THE Great American Novel.  If you like a different approach, you may just love the book.  I did!Here's my take on this big brouhaha about Nelle Harper Lee saying she didn't authorize it:  If you go back in and read the updates on the story about Harper Lee, the story against Mills is not nearly so black. Alice knew about this "letter" that "Harper" wrote (it was typed with a scrawled note from Harper Lee on the bottom) and she said that her sister no longer knew what she was doing and would sign anything that someone she trusted gave her. Look at the writing at the bottom of the letter in question, where she affirms that she wrote it. It's a scrawl like someone who can barely remember how to write. My mother is in a nursing home and believe me, up until the last year or two (when she began to lose all ability to write) I could take a letter out there vowing that she was robbed by Martians the week before and she would have signed it without a question AND written the part at the bottom saying she wrote it. Elderly people with serious health issues do what people they trust tell them to do. Alice, who was 100 at the time, BUT was still practicing law, said that Harper didn't know what she was signing AND didn't even remember the incident. Remember also that MANY of their friends are quoted (and spent a great deal of time with Mills and the Lees) and at least one of them has already come forward and said that it wasn't true; that the Lee sisters DID give their permission or else he would never have talked to Mills. This would be dozens of lawsuits if all those people were quoted without their permission (and they would not have given their permission if the Lees hadn't said it was okay) plus there is a lovely picture of "Scout" and Harper Lee on the cover, which I'm sure had to have her permission to be used. You have to know that this isn't Penguin Books' first time at the rodeo. A little controversy makes for good publicity; a real case of dozens of people being quoted without permission and photos used, also without permission, makes for a BAD lawsuit. By the time this book was about ready to come out, Harper Lee had had a stroke, if I remember correctly.  That could cause her to have memory and understanding problems. I am not going to jump to conclusions about this. I think that both Lees DID give permissioin and Harper Lee's declining health has made her memory play tricks on her. You have to be around elderly people with problems like this to understand fully. My mother often calls me her mother or her sister. She frequently asked me (until recently, as she is declining) how my baby is and tells me that my brother has a new baby son. I am an only child with no children. My mother's life is an open book and she has never had any child but me (in fact, her doctor said that I was the first and that a second one would kill her because of some medical problems she had) yet she believes all that when she's saying it. The bottom line is that everyone is jumping to believe something that one of the sisters (Alice) has said is NOT true. And Alice was still a practicing attorney at the time; hardly likely to be imagining it. If definite proof comes out later, I'll accept it, but a typed letter, signed by someone with serious health issues, whose sister flatly contradicts it, doesn't convince me.  It's a little early to be burning Mills in effigy.