Gregarious for a Day

February 5, 2006 11:56 AM

Gregarious for a Day: Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird and a few essays, speaks briefly with the New York Times in what may be her first interview since a press conference and long interview in the early 1960s.
posted by kirkaracha (17 comments total)

This is good. Not sure what to say beyond that though. To Kill a Mockingbird is amazing.
posted by chunking express at 12:14 PM on February 5, 2006

How common is the belief that Capote wrote To Kill a Mockingbird?
posted by Kwantsar at 12:34 PM on February 5, 2006

Some tell of the racial tensions they witness in their school cafeterias, others of the regional prejudices they experience at the hands of Northern peers who assume anyone from Alabama must drive a pickup truck or live in a mobile home.

Oh my. The sting.

"He's become quite amazing looking in old age, like God, but clean-shaven."

Still the phrase-turner.

Oddly, they didn't mention that the actress nominated for an Oscar for playing Lee was Catherine Keener. It sort of makes being played by Sandra Bullock a let-down.
posted by dhartung at 12:36 PM on February 5, 2006

"He's become quite amazing looking in old age, like God, but clean-shaven."
ha!
this is spectacular, thanks! happy Sunday!
posted by carsonb at 12:37 PM on February 5, 2006

Is that a common belief? I only new Capote as the author of In Cold Blood and only knew about that because of seeing the movie when I was younger. Or Breakfast at Tiffany's. I think I didn't confuse them because when I was taught Mockingbird was in middle school when fare like Capote's wouldn't be included in the curriculum.
posted by ao4047 at 12:38 PM on February 5, 2006

Kwantsar: I'd heard it before, but I'm not sure how much stock I put in it. According the Wikipedia biography, Capote was a habitual liar.
posted by sbutler at 1:04 PM on February 5, 2006

Anyone wondering what became of Mary Badham, the actress who played Scout Finch in the movie adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, look no further.
posted by emelenjr at 1:10 PM on February 5, 2006

not common, AFIK
posted by caddis at 1:52 PM on February 5, 2006

I think the story re: Capote is that he was her friend and proof read it, and also suggested extensive revisions and refinements, down to writing actual sentances.

Some writers get really carried away when they edit someone elses work, and expend a lot of creative juices as if it is their project.

He was later kind of pissed that she got a Pulitzer and he didn't.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:17 PM on February 5, 2006

This is excellent. Thank you.
posted by ColdChef at 4:14 PM on February 5, 2006

I love her explanation in the 1964 interview for why so many great fiction writers have come out of the South.
posted by amro at 5:18 PM on February 5, 2006

I heard that Capote made a lot of surreptitious edits to the manuscript while Lee was out back bustin' up that ole chiffarobe.
posted by soiled cowboy at 6:07 PM on February 5, 2006

Another thing I've noticed about people at home, as opposed, say to people in New England small towns, is the fact that we have rather more humor about us. We're not taciturn or wry or laconic. Our whole society is geared to talk rather than do. We work hard, of course, but we do it in a different way. We work in order not to work. Any time spent on business is time more or less wasted, but you have to do it in order to be able to hunt and fish and gossip.

That's about right.
posted by ColdChef at 6:24 PM on February 5, 2006

TKaMB? Never heard of it. *sips coke from a paper bag*
posted by stbalbach at 8:05 PM on February 5, 2006

I always wondered what she looked like. And now I know--she looks a bit like Fred Barnes.

(Ms. Lee, please forgive the above remark. I love you, and I have a signed, first-edition copy of your novel to show it.)
posted by iconjack at 9:26 PM on February 5, 2006

To Kill a Mockingbird is such a great book.
posted by graventy at 11:24 AM on February 6, 2006

There's also the legend that she wrote In Cold Blood. She'd worked in a law office before they went to Kansas to do the research for the book.
posted by gwyon at 12:28 AM on February 7, 2006