This morning, I was thrilled to read that Harper Lee was going to release a second novel—breaking her silence of half a century. How exciting it would be to revisit those characters we grew to like and love!
Minutes later, I was stung by doubt: what if it isn’t good? what if it is beyond just merely bad—and its badness bleeds into my memories of Maycomb County?
Over the next few days, I’ll be writing a bit more on this and expanding my thoughts below. But for now, I’d like to write on what I’m most worried about: that, quite realistically, Harper Lee was taken advantage of. Granted, this is dependent upon the ill will and crooked nature of those around Lee and the mental decrepitude of Lee herself, but more on this later.
Since the release of the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee has actively avoided attention. Turning down interviews, contracts, and speeches, Lee instead allowed her only novel—secure within the Southern canon—to speak for her. I admired this rather Cincinnatian attitude toward her craft: having accomplished what she set out to do, Harper Lee was content to retire to her life outside the spotlight, to her life in a sleepy Southern town.
Lee protected her privacy determinedly and with the help of the law; her sister Alice was her confidant, roommate, and legal counsel. It was upon Alice whom she relied after a stroke left Lee nearly blind, almost totally deaf, and forgetful. When Alice retired from her law firm at the age of 100 (!), Lee began to rely on a new legal counsel. Alice wrote around this time that her sister, whose eyesight had grown even worse, would sign practically anything that was put in front of her. A hasty signature for someone we trust or whose face we know can mean everything to a family or a court — or even a publisher.
Retired though she was, Alice’s presence and state of mind protected Lee from the opportunists of the publishing and literary world. At the very least, interviews were turned away and cases were settled without causing too large a stir. Alice died in November of 2014. Now, just three months later, the world has been shaken by the news that Go Set a Watchman is set to be published in July 2015.
What this hastily constructed timeline does not convey is that the manuscript for the second novel—according to the publisher, a writing long believed lost—was miraculously discovered “last fall” by Lee’s new lawyer and that, in light of this discovery and despite a half century of stubborn silence, Lee consented to a lifting of the veil. The timing here is as odd as an 88-year-old stroke survivor’s endorsement is questionable.
Mickey Rooney did not need to testify before Congress for us to know that seniors were being abused and manipulated. It is only natural, unfortunately, for the cruel, the frustrated, and the impatient to take advantage of those who can neither defend themselves nor even (know to) ask for help.
For me at least, fear of aging is not just a fear of senility, but also of muteness: how old will I be when my voice is no longer heard, when my voice is just a noise unrecognized and unacknowledged, easily overridden by a younger, more strident voice? Sometimes the old are buried long before their death.
Imagine the loneliness of outliving one’s friends coupled with the loneliness of memory loss; when there isn’t anybody left, to whom could she turn? It is, after all, most often the one responsible for caring for the venerable and vulnerable who takes advantage.
I can’t shake the feeling that Lee’s lawyer found the manuscript—reportedly attached to a typewritten manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird—because she was rummaging through Lee’s private artifacts. After all, who says that the manuscript was lost? It may well have been placed where it was—in a safety deposit box—with intention.
I can’t shake the feeling that Lee’s lawyer duped Lee into signing a consent for publication—how long until we get the financial numbers for Lee’s advance and, more importantly, for her lawyer’s share?—and, most likely, the following statements:
“It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told… After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”
The very voice of the blurb is simply too folksy to be Lee; it reads like someone trying to sound like Lee, but overplaying. A phrase like “pretty decent effort” and the retrospective knowingness of a first-time writer’s trials ring patently false from a lady like Lee. “Voice” aside, though, how are we to believe Lee even capable of writing this—or anything anymore—given her well-publicized health issues?
The timing of these events is indeed miraculous: a three month span in which Alice dies, the new lawyer finds a long-lost manuscript, and Harper Lee decides, after fifty years, that she’ll break her silence. Furthermore, now that all of Lee’s confidants and friends—namely, those who could more accurately identify the authenticity—are dead, what is to stop an ambitious charlatan from manipulating an old lady in order to haul in millions? The only living soul in the world who could express Lee’s wishes is Lee herself, who has lost her voice and her mind.
The more and more information that comes out supports this conclusion. An interview Vulture conducted with Harper Lee’s editor of eight years left me with an even worse taste in my mouth. Mr. Hugh van Dusen, whose correspondence with Lee is largely one-way, who was assigned Lee around the time she suffered from a stroke, and who has edited exactly ZERO pieces of Lee’s writing, came off as extraordinarily unprepared to answer basic questions—whether numerical or substantive—and proved that the publication of this novel began at the top and trickled down from there. Why wouldn’t it start with her editor?
Further, for a man who considers himself “close” to Lee, it is a betrayal of Lee to “give [his] impression” of her life to a reporter in nearly the same breath as he mentions how stridently she yearns for privacy and freedom thereof.
A passage that struck me in particular, though, is the following:
Harper is a famously private person. Does she have any ambivalence about the fact that the publication of the book is going to result in a lot of new publicity?
I don’t think so. In our press release she says, “After much thought and hesitation I shared [Go Set a Watchman] with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”
Mr. van Dusen is very careful to state “our press release,” not “Nelle says” or “Harper says.” The authenticity of this blurb is, of course, highly questionable—as are many other aspects of both the publication and the interview.
Perhaps it is just an innocent series of words on Mr. van Dusen’s part, but “the version I was told” — as in, the version of how this manuscript came to be published — reeks not only of the existence of multiple narratives, but also of the fabrication of a “version” or two. Is the version Mr. van Dusen was told different from the one the CEO of HarperCollins was told? Who is telling these versions, and who is crafting them?
Finally, and most damningly, is this passage:
Has there been any direct contact about the book between Harper and HarperCollins? Or is it all done through intermediaries?
Are you asking if we’ve been in touch with her directly?
Specifically about the release of this book, yes.
I don’t know, but I don’t think so, only because she’s very deaf and going blind. So it’s difficult to give her a phone call, you know? I think we do all our dealing through her lawyer, Tonja. It’s easier for the lawyer to go see her in the nursing home and say HarperCollins would like to do this and do that and get her permission. That’s the only reason nobody’s in touch with her. I’m told it’s very difficult to talk to her.
…It’s easy to be skeptical about her willingness to publish a book that had been forgotten for 55 years.
You mean was she unwilling to have it published? No, no, no, no. We would never do that. She’s too valuable an author to fool around with that way. It would never happen. We wouldn’t dare do that.
Woof. This raises so many questions. Does this man know her or not? The amount of “I don’t know”s and “I’m told”s and “I think”s seems to suggest that he does not. Who is Tonja and why should we trust her? The version Mr. van Dusen heard is that Tonja found the manuscript in the safety deposit box — why was she digging through it? It is one thing to retrieve something for a client; it’s another to go rooting around out of curiosity.
Most recently, an article published on Alabama.com confirms many of my suspicions; reporter Connor Sheets witnessed the absolute power Tonja Carter has established. No one is allowed in the nursing home to speak with her—not even Lee’s friends—nor can anyone contact Lee without first going through the lawyer. That all communication and all agreements are routed through Ms. Carter makes me profoundly nervous; what I fear so much about aging is the hostage crisis that can so easily arise: the elderly are easy prey for overeager lawyers who, accustomed to rationalizing, soothingly ensure the public that everything is OK even as they take over all communication and agency.
Mr. van Dusen is right on the money when he says that Harper Lee is “too valuable an author.” She may be too valuable an author for a lawyer and a publisher to pass up on the opportunity. In many ways, this is the perfect crime of opportunity: the victim is an elderly woman crippled by a stroke who has made it her life’s practice to avoid speaking publicly. So who then could bear witness against this when there is no one she has spoken with? So who then is left to speak up for Lee’s wishes or to survey the veracity of the writing? Lee certainly cannot.
Though that, of course, will not stop Tonja Carter from speaking for her and from fabricating convenient press releases. The most recent came to answer the rumors of insidious elder abuse. Lee is purported to say:
“I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions of Watchman.”
All roads lead to Tonja Carter.