Eutrusca
30-01-2006, 19:40
COMMENTARY: Anyone else love the book To Kill A Mockingbird? The author, Harper Lee, is notorious for being publicity shy. Here's an amusing, enlightening, somewhat touching article about her recent attendance at a luncheon for winners of an essay contest about the book.
Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30lee.html?th&emc=th)
By GINIA BELLAFANTE
Published: January 30, 2006
TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Jan. 27 — Of all the functions at the president's mansion of the University of Alabama here, none has acquired the mystique surrounding a modest annual luncheon attended by high school students from around the state.
They come with cameras dangling on their wrists and dressed, respectfully, as if they were about to issue an insurance policy or anchor the news. An awards ceremony for an essay contest on the subject of "To Kill a Mockingbird," the occasion attracts no actor, politician or music figure. Instead, it draws someone to whom Alabamians collectively attach far more obsession: the author of the book itself, Harper Lee, who lives in the small town of Monroeville, Ala., one of the most reclusive writers in the history of American letters.
With more than 10,000,000 copies sold since it first appeared in 1960, "To Kill a Mockingbird" exists as one of the best-selling novels of all time. For decades, Ms. Lee has remained fiercely mindful of her privacy, politely but resolutely refusing to talk to the press and making only rare public appearances, in which she always declines to speak. She has maintained her resolve despite renewed attention in the wake of the film "Capote," in which Ms. Lee is portrayed as the moral conscience of her childhood friend Truman Capote; the coming "Infamous," another Capote movie in which Sandra Bullock plays Ms. Lee; and a biography of Ms. Lee scheduled for May.
But since the essay contest, sponsored by the Honors College at the University of Alabama, got going five years ago, Ms. Lee, who is 79, has attended the ceremony faithfully, meeting with the 50 or so winners from most of the state's school districts and graciously posing for pictures with the parents and teachers who accompany them.
"What these people have done for me is wonderful," Ms. Lee, who agreed to speak to a reporter about the event, said during the luncheon on Friday. She was referring specifically to the two people who had conceived the contest in her honor, Thomas N. Carruthers, a prominent Birmingham lawyer, and Cathy Randall, a former administrator at the university.
Ms. Lee said she was struck by the perspective young people bring to the book. "They always see new things in it," she added. "And the way they relate it to their lives now is really quite incredible."
The students write with longing for the kind of unmanaged childhood experienced by Jem and Scout Finch in the rural 1930's Alabama of Ms. Lee's rendering. Some tell of the racial tensions they witness in their school cafeterias, others of the regional prejudices they experience at the hands of Northern peers who assume anyone from Alabama must drive a pickup truck or live in a mobile home. In an essay a few years ago one girl likened the trial of the book's Tom Robinson, a black man unjustly accused of raping a white girl, to the 1999 murder of Billy Jack Gaither, a young man living in Sylacauga, killed because he was gay.
The recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, "To Kill a Mockingbird" remains the only book Ms. Lee has written. It is difficult to overestimate the sustained power of the novel or the reverence with which Ms. Lee is treated here: it is not uncommon to find live staged versions of the story, hear of someone who has devoted his life to playing Atticus Finch in road shows, or meet children named Scout or ones named after the author herself.
At a book signing after the ceremony on Friday afternoon, a little girl in a velvet dress approached Ms. Lee with a hardback copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird," announcing that her name was Harper. "Well, that's my name, too," Ms. Lee said. The girl's mother, LaDonnah Roberts, said she had decided to make her daughter Ms. Lee's namesake after her mother-in-law gave her a copy of the book during her pregnancy. Another girl, Catherine Briscoe, 15, one of the essay contest winners, had read the novel six times. She trembled and held her hand to her heart as she spoke of its author: "It was breathtaking to meet the most important person in my life."
Sometimes Ms. Lee will encounter someone who will claim to know exactly where Boo Radley lived. "I had a girl come up to me here," Ms. Lee recalled, referring to an awards ceremony a few years ago, "and she said, 'Boo Radley lives across the street from my grandparents.' "
"Well, I didn't know what to say to that," she said, laughing.
Ms. Lee lives with her 94-year-old sister, Alice, a lawyer who still practices, and keeps an apartment in New York. She is not a judge in the essay contest, nor does she make any formal statement at the ceremony. Her one stipulation for the contest was that children who were home-schooled be eligible to compete.
[ This article is two pages long. To read the rest of the article, go here (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30lee.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th). ]
Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30lee.html?th&emc=th)
By GINIA BELLAFANTE
Published: January 30, 2006
TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Jan. 27 — Of all the functions at the president's mansion of the University of Alabama here, none has acquired the mystique surrounding a modest annual luncheon attended by high school students from around the state.
They come with cameras dangling on their wrists and dressed, respectfully, as if they were about to issue an insurance policy or anchor the news. An awards ceremony for an essay contest on the subject of "To Kill a Mockingbird," the occasion attracts no actor, politician or music figure. Instead, it draws someone to whom Alabamians collectively attach far more obsession: the author of the book itself, Harper Lee, who lives in the small town of Monroeville, Ala., one of the most reclusive writers in the history of American letters.
With more than 10,000,000 copies sold since it first appeared in 1960, "To Kill a Mockingbird" exists as one of the best-selling novels of all time. For decades, Ms. Lee has remained fiercely mindful of her privacy, politely but resolutely refusing to talk to the press and making only rare public appearances, in which she always declines to speak. She has maintained her resolve despite renewed attention in the wake of the film "Capote," in which Ms. Lee is portrayed as the moral conscience of her childhood friend Truman Capote; the coming "Infamous," another Capote movie in which Sandra Bullock plays Ms. Lee; and a biography of Ms. Lee scheduled for May.
But since the essay contest, sponsored by the Honors College at the University of Alabama, got going five years ago, Ms. Lee, who is 79, has attended the ceremony faithfully, meeting with the 50 or so winners from most of the state's school districts and graciously posing for pictures with the parents and teachers who accompany them.
"What these people have done for me is wonderful," Ms. Lee, who agreed to speak to a reporter about the event, said during the luncheon on Friday. She was referring specifically to the two people who had conceived the contest in her honor, Thomas N. Carruthers, a prominent Birmingham lawyer, and Cathy Randall, a former administrator at the university.
Ms. Lee said she was struck by the perspective young people bring to the book. "They always see new things in it," she added. "And the way they relate it to their lives now is really quite incredible."
The students write with longing for the kind of unmanaged childhood experienced by Jem and Scout Finch in the rural 1930's Alabama of Ms. Lee's rendering. Some tell of the racial tensions they witness in their school cafeterias, others of the regional prejudices they experience at the hands of Northern peers who assume anyone from Alabama must drive a pickup truck or live in a mobile home. In an essay a few years ago one girl likened the trial of the book's Tom Robinson, a black man unjustly accused of raping a white girl, to the 1999 murder of Billy Jack Gaither, a young man living in Sylacauga, killed because he was gay.
The recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, "To Kill a Mockingbird" remains the only book Ms. Lee has written. It is difficult to overestimate the sustained power of the novel or the reverence with which Ms. Lee is treated here: it is not uncommon to find live staged versions of the story, hear of someone who has devoted his life to playing Atticus Finch in road shows, or meet children named Scout or ones named after the author herself.
At a book signing after the ceremony on Friday afternoon, a little girl in a velvet dress approached Ms. Lee with a hardback copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird," announcing that her name was Harper. "Well, that's my name, too," Ms. Lee said. The girl's mother, LaDonnah Roberts, said she had decided to make her daughter Ms. Lee's namesake after her mother-in-law gave her a copy of the book during her pregnancy. Another girl, Catherine Briscoe, 15, one of the essay contest winners, had read the novel six times. She trembled and held her hand to her heart as she spoke of its author: "It was breathtaking to meet the most important person in my life."
Sometimes Ms. Lee will encounter someone who will claim to know exactly where Boo Radley lived. "I had a girl come up to me here," Ms. Lee recalled, referring to an awards ceremony a few years ago, "and she said, 'Boo Radley lives across the street from my grandparents.' "
"Well, I didn't know what to say to that," she said, laughing.
Ms. Lee lives with her 94-year-old sister, Alice, a lawyer who still practices, and keeps an apartment in New York. She is not a judge in the essay contest, nor does she make any formal statement at the ceremony. Her one stipulation for the contest was that children who were home-schooled be eligible to compete.
[ This article is two pages long. To read the rest of the article, go here (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30lee.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th). ]