by Marja Mills
First published 2014
Harper Lee wrote one of the twentieth century's most beloved novels, then vanished from public view. For fifty years, journalists traveled to Monroeville, Alabama, seeking interviews with the author known to friends as Nelle. All failed. In 2001, Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills knocked on the Lee sisters' door. They let her in. Three years later, Mills moved into the house next door to Harper and her sister Alice. She spent eighteen months sharing their daily routines. Morning coffee at McDonald's. Trips to the laundromat. Duck feeding expeditions. Catfish dinners. Road trips across lower Alabama with the sisters' close friends. Nelle discussed her passion for history and literature. She explained her views on proper journalism. Alice preserved family stories and shared them freely. The sisters decided Mills could tell their story. Nelle guided her efforts to capture the South accurately. This book chronicles Mills's friendship with both women. It reveals their intelligence and storytelling gifts. Mills gained rare access to Harper Lee's private world and learned why the famous author never published another novel.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, american, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, journalism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Alabama, Chicago, Monroeville
Period: 1950s, 2000s
278 pages · Hardcover · The Penguin Press