She was not the first famous Lee from the South, of course, and it is fascinating that she was in fact related to Robert E.
Her father, a lawyer and the model for Atticus Finch in the novel, had been born in Butler Country in and after he married Frances, the couple moved to Monroeville in There he was a supremely respected man and, in fact, served in the Alabama state legislature for a dozen years, from to As said earlier, he once defended two black men accused of killing a white storekeeper; both men were eventually convicted and hanged.
Clearly this family remembrance made an impression on young Nelle. But to emphasize: Hers was a mostly comfortable and congenial upbringing, far less strange than that of Scout Finch, not to mention that of Boo Radley. Nelle would never marry, but she always had a passel of friends and admirers. She would, by , land in New York City.
Her arc was that of an achiever. She had a particular pal in her youth, and this fact will always fascinate. Consequently, most of the information available about Lee's childhood comes from friends and is largely anecdotal. Because the character of Scout is somewhat autobiographical, readers gain their best access to Lee's childhood — or at least the flavor of her childhood — within the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird.
From to she studied law at the University of Alabama. She transferred to Oxford University in England as an exchange student for a year, but six months before completing her studies, Lee decided to go to New York to be a writer.
In , she submitted a manuscript to the J. Lippincott Company, who felt that her attempt at a novel was actually more of a series of strung-together short stories. The publisher recommended a rewrite, so Lee spent the next two-and-a-half years working on the manuscript. Her efforts paid off, and To Kill a Mockingbird , her first and only novel, was published in Lippincott Company interested in her work. Working with editor Tay Hohoff, Lee worked on a manuscript set in a small Alabama town, which eventually became her novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
Tougher than many of the boys, Lee often stepped up to serve as Truman's childhood protector. Truman, who shared few interests with boys his age, was picked on for being sensitive and for the fancy clothes he wore. While the two friends were very different, they both had difficult home lives. Truman was living with his mother's relatives in town after largely being abandoned by his own parents. While in New York City in the s, Lee was reunited with her old friend Capote, who was by then one of the literary rising stars of the time.
In , Lee joined forces with Capote to assist him with an article he was writing for The New Yorker. Capote was writing about the impact of the murder of four members of the Clutter family on their small Kansas farming community. The two traveled to Kansas to interview townspeople, friends and family of the deceased and the investigators working to solve the crime. Serving as his research assistant, Lee helped with the interviews, eventually winning over some of the locals with her easygoing, unpretentious manner.
Truman, with his flamboyant personality and style, had a hard time initially getting himself into his subjects' good graces. During their time in Kansas, the Clutters' suspected killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, were caught in Las Vegas and brought back for questioning. Lee and Capote got a chance to interview the suspects not long after their arraignment in January Soon after, Lee and Capote returned to New York.
She worked on the galleys for her forthcoming first novel while he started working on his article, which would evolve into the nonfiction masterpiece In Cold Blood. The pair returned to Kansas for the murder trial. Lee gave Capote all of her notes on the crime, the victims, the killers, the local communities and much more.
Lee worked with Capote on and off on In Cold Blood. She had been invited by Smith and Hickock to witness their execution in , but she declined. When Capote's book was finally published in , a rift developed between the two collaborators for a time. Capote dedicated the book to Lee and his longtime lover, Jack Dunphy, but failed to acknowledge her contributions to the work. While Lee was very angry and hurt by this betrayal, she remained friends with Capote for the rest of his life.
She also worked on and off with her friend Capote on his famed book, In Cold Blood A condensed version of the story appeared in Reader's Digest magazine.
The following year, the novel won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. A classic of American literature, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages with more than a million copies sold each year. The work's central character, a young girl nicknamed Scout, was not unlike Lee in her youth. In one of the book's major plotlines, Scout and her brother Jem and their friend Dill explore their fascination with a mysterious and somewhat infamous neighborhood character named Boo Radley.
The work was more than a coming-of-age story: another part of the novel reflected racial prejudices in the South. Their attorney father, Atticus Finch, tries to help a Black man who has been charged with raping a white woman to get a fair trial and to prevent him from being lynched by angry white people in a small town.
Lee died in Monroeville in You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
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