Host you are an hour and half north of the beaching and you come across a town court house, square and unremarkable and yet it is one of the most famous literary small towns. It is the center of go set a watchman. Tell us what you find. Guest you find a town that hasnt changed much from the description of macomb in to killing a mockingbird. There was a time when the town council was going to tear down the court house because they built a 1960s court house and thought they didnt need the old one. Now it has been restored. When you walk in it is like a church. People talk in hush tones take their hats off, it is a shrine. There is reconstructed home. Host the boundary walls and bricks are there. But there is a plaque out front, a yard and it is next to the finch house i think is where the walkin sort of dairy is. Guest the rock stone wall that truman turned cart wheels on to impress everybody is there. But it is a town that not embracing that is the southern conford. Host it is much different from oxford which a court house, shrine to the author but oxford is a small park and almost perfectly preferred. Macomb still is a little scuffy around the corners. Guest it is. Oxford has bookstores facing each other on the square. Monroe has none of that. And harper lee hasnt been eager to cooperate with prophoto promoting to kill a sfwl host mocking bird evolved from go set a watchman. We are talking about the first book she wrote. But it is the center of this controversy because she was like i am not going to publish another book. And her sister longtime caretaker, practice laws and she becomes ill and the story of the manuscript was found. Guest i have been saying there is a second manuscript out there but it will not come out until she is gone and now she is here and it is coming out. Host she was going through things old papers and comes crass the manuscript with go set a watchman on it. Alice 20 years ago was asked what happened to the involve harper lee was working on and her sister alice said we had a breakin and someone stole it. Someone made off with a ream of papers. That was deposited in the law offices of what were at one time both barnett and lee. It has been here all of this time. And now that ally alice lee is gone the skeleton key has been found. Host do you think she wanted to published and when alice wasnt around. Guest there has been a sibling competition always. Alice was very conservative and 17 years older than her younger sister. She saw herself as third and parent. And nell was also extroverted and bohemian in appearance and opinion. And alice was the buffer between her younger sister and the world was hungered to know more about her. I hope there was joy publishing the book that ally wouldnt let her publish. Host why do you think she would not let her publish . Guest first, could be it was the first effort by a young novelist and has the ear marks of such. Harper assured us she didnt edit this. Host nelly is in new york, living in a cold water flat a friendlyfamily gave her money to write for a year and then she sort of furiously writes turning in 5070 pages every week or so and this is the man manuscript, go set a watchman, was the original title but when they saw it they didnt make an offer on it. Guest at one time she said she was working on a book called atticus and things go through iterations whether it is a working title. I believe to killing a mockingbird went through three voices. First person, third person, and we get a combination of the two with gene in her 30s filling us in on things the 9yearold scout couldnt know. Host you can see the editing process. It is clear in these iterations of the involve. The first thing turned in was the adult scout looking back. She came back home. It was set in contemporary times. There is a civil rights turmoil going on and she tells the story looking back. It is a very southern way of getting into the story. She takes the train home. She is back home in the south again. And she remanences with her father who is elderly now about the by gone days. Host go set a watchman comes from a scene in to killing a mockingbird which is a seen of atticus outside of the court house. Guest right. Host the editing process was extensive and took more than a year . Guest more than two. Host what emerged was the story everybody knows. It has the nice trick of nash being about the korean war but talking about the vietnam war. To killing a mockingbird is talking about the 1930s but was talking about the racial turmoil in the south in the 50s. Right. You can see the voices in third person and first. This is from to killing a mockingbird and this is 9yearold scout. Macomb was an old town but a tired old town and in Rainy Weather the streets turn today red slop the court house sagged into the square somehow it was hotter then. A black dog suffered on the day, flies in the sweltering shade. That is the adult. Guest she is looking back and remanence the behavior. Guest whether they caught it or it deserves a purpose is a coin toss. If you tell the story from the Vantage Point of a 9yearold girl there is a lot they cannot see and hear. But if you can take an adult looking back they add wisdom, behind hindsight and reassurance all will be well. They run into dangerous situations with the mob, running through backyards, someone firing a shotgun over their head. But she comes back and reassures us this is the summer and when we met dill. We get a sense it will be okay. Think of it as an adult narriation to to fill nariation to the film. I talked to green and he said to killing a mockingbird was cobbled together from an earlier manuscript and freestanding short stories set in that time that made good chapters on their own. Typical one is the story about how jim lost his temper and broke all of the hy dranges and when atticus came out he said do what she wants. And she said i want to be read to her. He doesnt know she is coming off morphine. That is a short story. Host now we are back to the modern day and this manuscript is sitting in a safe box. I dont know i believe that creation. And harper lee was quoted saying happy as well it is being published. She had a very difficult time after to killing a mockingbird came out. She wanted to publish another book. There are letters from capote saying no one saw mel, she is locked up writing. She wanted to write another book for a long time. Here is go set a watchman, and it is dawns on no body to go publish it or present it to anybody. There is no record as you and i discussed earlier, the was no evidence of her editor at the time even a decade later thinking about publishing this. Guest right. And her agent, venture of note a year after the publication in to killing a mockingbird in all caps said the mockinbird would like a brother or sister. Well the little brother and or sister. Host you would think the idea was the and if mel was struggling, lets have a sequel to that and maybe spruce it up a little bit. There is nothing out there. And you would be the guy did you ever hear of any evidence they worked on that manuscript after to killing a mockingbird came out . Guest no. There is a rumor floating the long good bye but that could be the working title. All i know is there is a large manuscript of go set a watchman and to killing a mockingbird. There was an attempt to create an in cold blood book in the 1960s working on a notorious case involving a reverend who was the beneficiary of an insurance policy and they kept dying. His attorney kept getting lost and he finally got fed up. At the sixth funeral someone from chicago stood up and shot him dead. But the law couldnt achieve and they all went out the windows. There was a local sheriff who said, first time i heard 300 witnesses say something. She worked on that kept the files and the attorney who lent her the files kept asking for them and the man passed away without the files being returned. So there was evidence she was trying and trying and understand her support system fell away. Her team fell away. Truman floated out to sea on drugs and alcohol and became an undependable friend. Tao was already in her 60s when she helped her with to killing a mockingbird and retired. And brown had other fish to fry so to spoke. He was a broadway lyric writer and had a family. These are the people that sponsored her. So by the mid1970s the bloom was off the rose and it was break or break it time. Host she was financially comfortable. She lived extremely simply. She had the most nondescrip one story mansion. You are looking for harper lees pass and you can easily pass it. She has this very simple straightford straightforward life. She is not a recluse but most of the time she was hiding in new york. Guest she said i just want to be the jane austin of the south. Meaning she wanted to write about the region and the people in that region. She kept close to people she had grown up with and went to church with. In new york her circle was very small again. Friends wrote her from alabama and said we are coming up and would like to meet some writers. And she wrote so would i. She moved up here because she loves architecture and she was a baseball fan i understand she had a close female friend at the new yorker who she would pick up for lunch and they would go to ball games. But when someone invited her in midtown manhattan she said i would not come down there. It is too wild. Host she is not living high on the hog. It was never about the money. Guest this book to killing a mockingbird, is a tribute to her father. She said it was a love story. This is about a great man in a small town and what is more powerful than the scene where atticus loses the brief case and packs it up and everybody in the gallery turns up and the minister says stand up host that is a dad everybody wants. Guest he has been voted by move ohie goers as the number one role model. They like a loyal giant. Host her dad wasnt quite atticus. We will come back to that. I like the conspiracy theories because when you go go to meet harper lee it looks like the little town in mississippi i grew up in lexington. Everything is the same until you mention two words. Harper lee. That was your experience reporting there . Everything changes . Guest the first question normally was you are not from around here, are you . I had several strikes against me. I was an out of Towner A Yankee and a outsider. Host when you go down there the word is out everywhere. You dont know quite who you are talking to. And the minute you ask one person, by the time you get to the second person everybody in towns knows you are here and there is an agreement on if anybody will talk to you. Guest exactly. One lady said this is mixed up like peanut butter. I was talking to one gentlemen on the square and another walked up and it was almost prearranged. He groomed me on why i was in town and what i expected to find. So yeah, there is a telegraph going on. Host was he appointed by anyone to have that position . Or just as asserting himself as the official gatekeeper . Guest yes. Bbc went down a number of years ago and went around with a docent and was enjoying the heck out of what they were doing and seeing. They went to a restaurant together and ate together. After they were gone this fellow said to the bbc crew that was harper lee. There is two interesting points about her relationship with the town. Host host the second book and whether or not she likes the town that much. Guest or if they like her. Host in to killing a mockingbird, everyone has an opinion it is a nice love letter to a small southern town. It is a love letter to her dad but in the book, virtually no other adult, but atticus and the sheriff, are decent. It is a about a town accusing a man of rape and the a mob coming after him. Guest the Church Leaders in the town are helping africa but need people for help on the south. A man has to drink out of a paper bag to make an excuse for marrying a black woman. Why else would he if he were not a drunk . Host she went to new york and stayed there except to visit family and friends. She said this is a horrible place and i got out of it. But then the town has this thing where they are supposed to like her and she is supposed to sort of like them. And i didnt really get the sense it is a touchy relationship and i dont think she cared for the town much. I think she was just glad to be done. Guest harperer lee doesnt just critique the white people in town. She made it clear prejudice and fear runs in human blood. When the person who takes care of the finch kids takes them to her black church a woman plants herself in their way and says what are you doing here . And there is showdown about bringing these children into the church. So there is that kind of suspicion running on all sides. We dont have saints and sinners. We have people affected by the circumstances. Getting to new york harper lee couldnt have written to killing a mockingbird if she had not gone to new york because living in that town she had a limited perspective. And in new york what does she see . Here is people with accents people with different kind of dress, people going to harlem to hear jazz. It is a poly glauctown. It is the first stopping point of anybody coming from that side of the world. She looks over her shoulder and sees her town that was set in its ways and came to a town of never changing things. So it was that new perspective that allowed her to write that book. Host i think she would have been happy to stay away from the town. Guest it was her sister who insisted she come back regularly because why should she be left holding the bag. Host their mother was unwell . Guest mom was unwell mr. Lee began to decline after the book. Alices declared she was tired of the business connected with family life in harper lees success and wanted her sister to shoulder some of the burden. Host mels friends say it is ordinary and once you are inside the curtain, and in the inner room, it is very nice and pleasant, but outside of that, alabama it seemed was always striking me the afection reception for the book. It came out right in 1960 and alabama was not changed by it. Selma is just up the road in montgomery. You go right by there when you fly in. All of the stuff after that the bombing of the Birmingham Church revered the lessons in the book but didnt learn from it. Guest realize to killing a mockingbird was not talked about until 1984. And asked why it wasnt taught early and they said it offended too many people. Host this is one of the reasons perhaps why they didnt care for the overall town. They have a play that is poplar of to killing a mockingbird. Guest it is a license to be an amateur production. You will not see to killing a mockingbird on broadway. Host the second act of the play is in the courtroom. Guest i was on the jury. Host you can see the resentiment saying wait a minute i wrote this story about how unpleasant the town can be and now you are turning a buck on it and acting like you love it and you can see why that make tick her off. Guest yes, good friends said she wanted to characters and stories to remain in the past and not on tshirts and lunch bock boxes or key chains. She wants them respected. High school kids painted a mural on the side of a building depicting a scene from the to killing a mockingbird and i thought it was well down but she called it graffiti. Host there are other stories around town when once you are in the curtain and she likes you she is pleasant. But if she doesnt care for you she doesnt suffer fools gladly. Guest no she was at a Christmas Party and someone came up saying i love atticus, and she put her drink down and walked off. Host the incident with the museum they were selling tshirts with to killing a mockingbird and they didnt have the copy write for it. When she asserted the right, they are the ones who objected. Guest 25,000 people a year come to the town just to walk those streets. So the town benefits. All the little cafes are all selling lemonade because of harper lee and to killing a mockingbird. Host you mention the book wasnt taught until the 1980s. When did it become a tourist attraction . Guest i cannot pinpoint it. It happened by increments and the play helped pull people in. It is something they can publicize. They have not made steps to creating a boyhood home. It is only recently a plaque went up saying capote lives here. Host what was the population when they were kids . Guest 7500 . Maybe less . 3500 . Host it is about 5,000 now. That sounds about right. I dont think it peaked at any point like my home town. In the civil war the town was founded by the 1830s had about 300 people half white, half black, and you quote a Union Soldier who passed through it at one point called it the most boring place on earth. By the time she was a kid the end of world war one guest it was really the most boring place on earth. Host it didnt have paved streets and such. Guest there there people that love that story and wouldnt have it any other way. They are perfectly comfortable. Host it is a very nice little town until you get into it getting contentious with the book. The south is still very uncomfortable with the ratiocial injustice that you will see in people who love to killing a mockingbird. And then they will pan the Confederate Flagment. Guest couldnt be better time this book is coming out the summer they are taking down the Confederate Flag. Host i will be surprised if the Confederate Flag comes down. But i think the decision with the gay marriage and the Confederate Flag is surprising if the south takes both of these. She is uncomfortable with the society. She came back home more or less after having a stroke. When was that . Guest i would say five or six years ago. My understanding is that she was in her apartment alone suffered a stroke for two days. It happened saturday morning and on monday morning friend came to pick up her and found her on the floor conscious but she had suffered a stroke. That was the moment when the decision was made you must come home. Host it is interesting her friend capote coined the phrase all southerners came home even if it is in a box. Guest truman was an unusual character in that town. Host and that creates the controversy around the book that she is diminished intelluctually after the book. Guest alice before passing away said she will do anything to please people. She lost it to an agent. Host and perhaps alice wasnt sharp as she used to be. Guest and the mockingbird next door was about to be brought out and she pointed out they had signed a release. And i dont think they understood she was interviewing them. Host this was extraordinary access. It is hard to meet. And she all but moved in with him. She was living next door. Guest as a journalist she was ethical and got permission but they didnt recall signing it. Host i think alice did. She was clear and this is why there was controversy that nel said i never cooperated with this book. And alice was like well and you kind of got the idea guest they are not on the same page . Host yes. And the sisters are getting older and they lived next door to capote just off the square. 300 yards. And then they moved out to a nice neighborhood with a onestory rancher and lived there with their dad until he passed. Then it was the two sisters, neither married so that was where they stayed. They had a lot of money apparently. Like millions. But lived simply side by side. It seemed like late in life it all started to factor that whatever they were both loosing capacities and it seemed to start where the center couldnt hold anymore. Guest i saw a sign of it when i was walking on on mockingbird. I got a letter from alice say i understand you have been at work on a book on my sister and i dont like it. And i thought how can two women who face each other every morning, how could nel not have mentioned she knew someone was out there and she would cooperate . Her sister apparently didnt know. Host after that what happened next . Guest i would go to the mailbox expecting a fat envelope saying seize and assist. But i tried to conduct myself as a gentlemen and be discreet and explain my rezasons and i thought the story needed to be told before everyone passed away because mels papers were not on file and there wasnt much of a trial and i was trying to get it done because to killing a mockingbird was the story of the 20th century. A lot of people agreed to talk to me for that reason. But some people said well im a close friend of ms. Lee and i knew you would call but i cannot talk to you. I respected that. Host did anyone in the family help . Guest you know, yes alice. When i started sending them history like their grandfathers civil war pension form or anything like that. I got a lovely letter back saying you have been doing your research and when i asked her about her fathers politics and how the transition happened to be a segregist to an activist. She had he had his antennas up for change and his attitude was the right solution and one we go for. Host approaching mel, your attempt was through her agent . Guest yes, he turned me away. He said her agent turned be away. When i was down there one time a friend of hers said we could drive by she might be out. And i said you know what . I dont want the woman to think i am hounding her and this is a small town and people will see a stranger was going by srilowly watching so just leave it. Host you didnt do the knockknock on my door . Guest i am fine with myself as a biographer i should be able to get it going. It is hard to live in america and not leave evidence of where you went to school and who you a associated with. People on the street in new york it took a lot of shoe leather. And she didnt want the cease and desist letter because if word is out and they tell everybody ice this guy you are iced. Guest yes, i would not be welcome. Host when i was reporting this year earlier, there were a number of doors i knocked on with cars in the driveway and lights on and no one came to the door. And you leave cards for people and they would not call you back. It was an unusual southern town in that regard. When people dont want you on their front porch they will usually come tell you. Get off my front porch. Here it was this wall of silence. It was a very delicate notes on the piano that you get people to talk. Guest look at the delima they are in. They dont with an the unfriendly place. They have a play and people come. But there could be dissension between people. She does have extended family through her sister and brother. Louise married and had children and her elder brother, edwin, had children as well. So the lee family is by no means gone from that part of alabama. And remaining that civility is critical in a small town and they will not betray each other to please someone. Host there is no higher Social Circle than being lees friend. And i thought that is why you get a lot of people who are unhappy with the lawyer down there, tanya carter. And we discussed, and there is a theory and i am interested in our point of view carter and all of the change in the past few years, the lawsuit against the museum, the book comes out, there is other contentious things around town. What is is removed is the nice buffer of alice who stalled things in town and was the pleasant thing. When she went out of the way it is a little bit hard and what carter is doing is exactly what her clients wants to do and mel is tight with a lot of folks in the town and doesnt care if people get upset. Guest i think you hit it on the head. Unfortunately, ms. Carter is becoming the fall person the lawyer wanted to do that but i think she is taking direction from a woman who is quite up in years doesnt have to be secondguessed, and may want the perk of being in the news again. Host and the factor is her mental state. She is diminished to some degree and i talked to a number of people, and these people have known her 3040 years in that circle, and they had she came to this Junior College or Community College that and she never came to it. It is named for her. She came one year and this person came back by and said thank you for coming. That was great. Mel looked at her and said i did about go. Guest good days and bad days. Host she comes out with this life long reverse opinion about not publishing anymore and there is a somewhat miracal story oa manuscript coming out within a few months of alices death and then mel is happy to have the book published. There is millions on the table. And you have people with legit concern said if mel under p stands. Guest there was a review of her capacity and she seemed to be fine. But it was raise issues of elder care. We have never been in a situation where a second book came out by someone who was still alive that has this much importance. It is usually it estate that decides this. Host a number of hemmingingway books came out after his death. I think there are very honest questions asked and part of it from my point of view as a journalist, and yours as a biographer, is that the Publishing House, her agent and attorney have been closed mouthed about it. Her editor at the Publishing House said i never heard of this or seen this. So when this thing pops out again with the story that seems almost incredible to me and i would have uncertainty about it but the book was right here and i am the attorney and i just stumbled across it. I showed it to mel and she said lets publish it. No editing. I showed it to them. What is your take . Guest i think we are lucky to have the book come out and what timing. You know there is a private high school that is primary white in an all black neighborhood . The streets are not paved in gold in that town or anywhere else in america. We have a lot of work to do. What a timely reminder. If is anything in terms of voice and sincerity we will all be so lucky. She would say the reason i dont bring another book once you get to the top of the mountain there is only one way to get it down. She won the surprise with her first novel. What kind of pressure was on her do bring out another book . She did very well. She is taking a risk and i hope reviewers realize it was written 60 years ago and she was in her 20s fresh in new york. Host and for the skepticsm you would have to believe someone was looking for this. It is clearly worth millions. It seemed you might look for that around the house. Guest i have seen the cover page and it is typed. If host if you are the representing writer and can take mill million millions by publishing older work, and it is my theory because it is later in life of her looking back those the tone of the writing that is and it is lovely. Guest she is a great story teller. I spoke to someone on the College Newspaper at the university of alabama with mel. And she had when i opened to killing a mockingbird i could hear her on teller the story. Host if you could bring out that book and earn your client later in life a return to literary stardom, earn as much money as the market bares, that is good representation. Guest think what a shot in the arm for literary publishers and readers that this is the biggest book of the summer. We get an adult harry potter for once. Host how long when you were writing the book did you spend reporting and doing your leg work . Guest it took four years to do the research. She disappeared in 1964. So a good part of the biography is oral history from people who sat next to her in class or lived down the block from her or grew up in that town. I had to go back and reconstruct the pass from people who lived it. Host she gives fun quotes of everyone presuming she is scout. But she would say i am more boo radly. Guest there is a little boo there. But i have a theory there is a little mayella in her. I think the girl who once loved, the girl who doesnt have a steady i think a male is an outside outsider as much as boo. Mel was a different cat for most people. She and truman were, someone who knew them well said truman was too soft for the boys and mel was too hard for the boys too soft for the girls. Host and arthur was a real character who lived down the street. The becomeackyard backs up to a school now. She descrubibedescribes is it in the it it in the book. Guest there is that person in the neighborhood who will not come out or says get off my lawn. It is only by expanding ourselves that we have to learn to live with them and not oppose them because they have every right to be there. Like atticus says the to children leave that man alone. Host we discussed the sound of the furry and the iliad and it was the first gray teachers brother, i believe. She was mentally in capacitated. And she pulls boo from the guy down the street. Guest her english teacher in high school was ms. Mody in the book. The book is not completely autobiographical. She cut and pressed and create. But when you read to killing a mockingbird you are going through a photo album of her childhood. Host i think real people do this. And it seemed she did the same thing. Guest and her father isnt entirely atticus. Host he is called one shot finch in the book. And you mention one incident guest someone convinced him to go duck hunting with a threepiece shoot on. We was not oneshot finch. But in terms of integrity and understanding of children he is atticus finch. He was out there opposed today the clan as the editor. The clan was going down the street parading and he told them to get out of the street. He was not typical of his age. He was a thoughtful man and a compassionate man. A leader in his local church. Believe me the elements of atticus are there. Host and the family plot is there in town across from the church. Everything is close together. There is a walking tour you can take and you can do the walk in 15 minutes. Guest one of the models for boo is buried next to his father. Host they kept them in the house. And arthur died young. Guest he died at the age of 40 of tb. He had not been out in years. It started as grounding because he and fellows got in trouble but in turned into induced agor agorphobia and that is where you get boo. Host and the lee family plot is off the main road. The church is over here. And there is a spot they are all together i found that comforting at the end. They are together and there is a spot that i presume is for nel who is just two miles away on the bypass. Guest she is a southern lady covering up the magnolias when the first frost comes and knows everybodys history. Host it is your thought on the book we are about to read that she turned in . Guest yes. Go set a watchman is a the first draft of to killing a mockingbird. Host and that is the book she left this safe home and she was 23 . Guest mid20s. Host she was following truman. Faulkner was a huge star capote had blown up who had house of flowers and she was going off to be a writer. She went up to new york and all of the time in the cold water flat she was working on go set a watchman when we are about to read. Guest a lot of liberal minded people were going to new york. After the war, it was a fantastic place to be. What a great time to be there. Talk about being in a creative ferment and i dont know if the book would have been published before the war or 15 years later. Host there is an incident in the book where she got so frustrated she threw it out the window. Guest yeah she told the class at the high school, because she would droping periodically, she was on the third draft of the book. Truman capote is famous keep in mind. And for eight years she was trying to tell a story from her childhood. Third draft, tired of it sitting at the type writer and most of the manuscript is done, and she realizes she is sick of the book. I go through this period where the words look like swedish and dont make sense anymore. She yanks the page out of the type writer walks over the window, it is snowing, raises the window and takes what becomes one of the most poplar books of the century and throws them in the alley and said i quit. She said it is like building a house out of match sticks one at a time. And she lost the fire and ability to complete it. And she was told is not just your book. For two years i have been helping you. My finger prints all over it. She went out and picked up up the manuscript. Host one time at a book festival someone asked why do you write this book and he said to finish the book because by the time you get to the end of you are sick of it. She hit that wall