'Mockingbird' classic picked for citywide read

Author Harper Lee has shunned the spotlight for almost 50 years, but a citywide event will encourage readers to delve into her life as they revisit her classic novel.

Organizers of the annual United We Read event, sponsored by Central High School, have selected Lee's classic of the Depression-era South "To Kill a Mockingbird" as this year's book for the Feb. 6 event.

"This is the first time we've done a classic and the first time we've done a book of this caliber," said school librarian Julia Jorgensen, who called it a tough book for its unflinching look at racism, poverty and the mentally challenged.

"It's a book that makes people uncomfortable. I think in general a lot of people read for escapism and this is more of a good look at what America was and, in some ways, still is."

It addition to the regular lectures associated with the event, New York Times best-selling author Charles Shields will be present Feb. 21 and 22 to discuss his 2006 biography of Lee, "Mockingbird."

Now 80, Lee divides time between her homes in Monroeville, Ala., and New York. Lee has famously never written a follow-up novel to the 1960 Pulitzer Prize winner. She avoids literary circles, shuns the media and socializes mainly with her sister; both are unmarried.

Shields interviewed more than 600 people to sketch his picture of Lee's life and encountered rigid resistance from the author, who, he said, is encouraging people not to read his book.

Shields respected Lee's privacy throughout the process and said he hoped to convince her he was going about his research in a gentlemanly way. "I went to Monroeville a couple times and an acquaintance of hers offered to take me by her house to see if she was outside on the porch. I said no, because I knew if she got the idea I was following her around," she'd really start resisting his research.

His formal requests for interviews were denied, but he strongly rejects the term "recluse" for Lee.

"I would say she was a woman who was intensely famous a brief period and decided she didn't want to be famous anymore. She decided it was a great distraction and if she wanted to be a serious writer she needed to leave all that," he said.

Little work

But for a serious writer, Lee has produced a pittance of work in the last 47 years. Some have speculated she has unpublished manuscripts stashed away which will come out after her death while others believe she felt she couldn't muster a worth sequel to "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Shields does not take a firm stand on this, but believes Lee leads a rewarding life.

"She's a great reader, really an amateur scholar. She loves American history and history of the South. Both of her homes are crammed with books. She corresponds with old friends, writing long eloquent letters that they'll probably share after she's gone. You know, she told her cousin Vicki Williams, there is only one way to go after you have a hit like that and that's down. She may be afraid of disappointing people," said Shields.

Shields spends large portions of his biography discussing the relationship between Lee and childhood friend and flamboyant author Truman Capote. Shields said their relationship began to strain when Capote did not give Lee sufficient credit for her hand in writing his nonfiction account of the 1959 killings of a Kansas family and the two men convicted and executed for the crime, "In Cold Blood."

He said the relationship got worse as Capote's drug use grew worse. The loss of this close ally and supporter may have also contributed to Lee not writing a follow-up.

"She lost her cheerleading section," he said. Shields, like others, believes the puckish, undersized Dill of "To Kill a Mockingbird," was based on Capote.

The campaign

United We Read will kick off its celebration, Feb. 5 with a 7 p.m. discussion lead by teacher Bill Springer and reader's theater at Barnes & Noble. Details of other readings and discussion groups will be available at www.cape.k12.mo.us, sometime this week.

One of the liveliest discussion groups is bound to be that lad by CHS principal and former AP English teacher Dr. Mike Cowan. This will take place at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 28 at the school library.

"It will be a special reading. It's a reading that's so relevant to our school and our community. We take such great pride at being a diverse school, I'm not necessarily just talking about black and white, but also socioeconomic. This book has just so much insightfulness into the human character and the disenfranchised of our society," said Cowan.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

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