You have probably heard, by this point, the news that Harper Lee is finally releasing a companion novel for To Kill A Mockingbird after over 50 years. Pretty exciting news, right? Her publisher has probably had a lot of time to figure out their publicity rollout and has also definitely made sure that she wants them to publish said companion novel, yes? Especially since Harper Lee has always made it very clear that she would not release another book, and since Harper Lee is currently in a nursing home, and since her sister and lawyer died last year, and several third parties have begun suing one another for the right to use Harper Lee’s name…you would definitely think they would be sure to have all their ducks appropriately rowed before making such a significant announcement, right?
At the very least, they would have talked to Harper Lee about it, right? To get her, you know, permission?
Who knows! Yesterday Vulture ran one of the most confusing interviews I’ve ever seen from Harper Lee’s editor, Hugh Van Dusen, who doesn’t seem to know what room he’s in at the moment:
Why is this book finally showing up now, after all these years?
The version I was told was that the book was in either a safe deposit box or a bank vault, and it was wrapped in a manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird and nobody noticed it for all these years. I don’t know this for a fact, but one must imagine that Harper Lee — we call her Nelle — just never told anybody about the book and then forgot it existed. Her lawyer, Tonja Carter, who is also Nelle’s very close friend, was apparently looking through this safety deposit box and found [Go Set a Watchman]. I guess she then went to her friend said what it is this? Nelle said, and this is all public knowledge, that her editor at the time at Lippincott, the original publisher of To Kill a Mockingbird, said to her this isn’t what you want to write; you want to write something about Scout when she was a girl. So Nelle went back and wrote a new book: To Kill a Mockingbird.
HOO BOY, it is never a great sign when the answer to a direct, simple question is “THE VERSION I WAS TOLD.” Because, right, “I’ve seen a 40 million figure”…your editor doesn’t just bung away your only other book into a safety deposit back for fifty years when your only novel is that huge of a bestseller? And then right after Harper’s sister/lawyer/advocate dies, this book just happens to turn up, and you just happen to set a release date? This feels like the publishing equivalent of “these jeans just fell off a truck, forty dollars, cash.”
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.”
Wait, she says it or your press release says it for her? You don’t think she has any ambivalence? You’re literally unsure about the degree of her ambivalence?
Has the book been edited? Or is what will eventually be on bookshelves untouched from what was in the safety deposit box?
If it has been edited, nobody’s told me. It’s the novel she wrote and showed to her editor at Lippincott, who didn’t think it was the book Nelle should be writing. So Nelle wrote another book. I don’t know this for a fact, but I doubt very much that anyone at Harper has edited it. My understanding is that it will be exactly what she wrote in the mid-1950s.
“Nobody’s told me.” “My understanding is.” You guys should have a meeting about this, probably! I don’t know, MAYBE it’s not the case that a bunch of publishers eager to capitalize on a hugely profitable name are taking advantage of a very elderly woman who lives in a nursing home and has diminished capacity. I hope that this is not the case! But if you are going to release another book of hers, maybe make sure that you are going through all of the appropriate steps! Coordinate your message among your team members! Decide if you are going to edit the book or not, and then tell the editor, because that seems like information the editor should have. Right?
So what does it mean to Harper Lee’s editor today?
I first met her about eight or nine years ago. She actually had a stroke about eight years ago, and I met her a couple of months before that at a Harper function. I’d never met her before. We had lunch and had a very good time, so she then came to dinner at our apartment in New York, with my wife, who’s also in publishing. After she recovered from the strokes, she went back to where she’s from in Monroeville, Alabama, to live, and she’s in a nursing home there now. She’s getting progressively deafer and more blind, and that’s where things stand. I don’t hear from her. There’s no reason why I should, because we don’t need to do anything. I write her notes now and then, but I haven’t heard anything back and I wouldn’t expect to.
Look, fair enough that being Harper Lee’s editor today just involves “I met her at a party once nine years ago.” But this feels like one of those nights where you and a bunch of friends from college who all live in different parts of town are trying to coordinate last-minute and everyone’s texts are getting more and more confusing. “I thought Katie was picking you up?” “No, I’ve been waiting for you outside the library for like ten minutes?” “Why did you think I was driving?” “Guys, did anyone even invite Katie?” And meanwhile Katie’s already at the restaurant, but it’s the first place, not the actually one you guys decided to go to because Anna went to a great Ecuadorian place last week that she really wants to show you, and you’re all going to get a series of increasingly angry and confused messages from Katie at around 8:15.
Has there been any direct contact about the book between Harper and HarperCollins? Or is it all down 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.
So you’re sure that she’s willing to have this book published, now, unedited, but nobody has talked to her, and also she is deaf and blind? And someone else has told you that it is difficult to talk to her?
Is there any link between the book appearing and all the legal problems surrounding the To Kill a Mockingbird copyright having died down?
No. Everything is calm. All the legal issues, I believe, have all been settled. Her lawyer Tonja Carter discovered this manuscript, which nobody knew had existed and Nelle thought had disappeared. I’m sure that’s what happened. I’m told that all those legal problems are settled now. And those problems have nothing to do with this publication. I promise you that’s true.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.
For a more in-depth look at “all the legal issues,” by the way, check out Michelle Dean’s investigation of the battle over Harper Lee’s signature from last year.
Here’s an author who has staunchly refused interviews and publicity since 1960, who hasn’t breathed a word about her interest in publishing another book to either family or friends, but who is suddenly fine with releasing her decades-old Mockingbird prequel, despite the fact that it doesn’t sound like anyone at her publisher has actually been in touch with her about it? This brings up questions! This is the most madness-inducing interview I have read in I don’t know how long.
Q: Have you asked Harper Lee for her opinion on publishing this book?
A: Well, she’s very deaf, and it’s difficult to call her nursing home.
Q: Okay, but have you asked her?
A: The legal issues are all sorted out now, if that’s what you mean.
Q: That isn’t what I mean. Has anyone at Harper asked the author of this book if she actually wants to have it published, unedited? Or did you just find a copy of an old manuscript of hers and wanted to see if you could publish it without her objections because she doesn’t have an active advocate? Is there a strategy here, or are you just sort of publishing whatever you find in the back offices?
A: I call her Nelle!
This may very well not be an exploitative situation! But oh man, in the absence of clear answers and a well-thought-out strategy on the part of Harper Lee’s publishers, it certainly looks like one. A woman spent her whole life making it very clear that she was not interested in releasing a second novel suddenly changes her mind – without having been directly contacted by anyone at her publisher, it sounds like – while also being apparently too enfeebled to pick up a phone and answer a few basic questions? I don’t know, hasn’t she made HarperCollins enough money that they could send down a few editors to talk with her in person, if it’s that important? How much time have they had for this publicity rollout? Shouldn’t they have, at the very least, coordinated a more well-thought-out sound bite?
Is she still living in the nursing home?
Yes.Is she doing okay?
From what I hear, yes. Her sister, who was a lawyer in Monroeville, died last year. I should know the exact age, but she was something like 104. So there’s obviously longevity genes in the family. [Lee is 88 years old.]
Okay, “her sister lived to 104″ is not an answer to “is Harper Lee doing okay,” but whatever, dude.
Is it fair to say that Harper won’t be talking to the media now that she’s got a new book out?
I don’t think anything there’s going to be anything more revealing than what’s in the press release.
You know, this I believe.
Tags: harper lee, i dunno, interviewers, murky situations
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My biggest takeaway from this interview was the burning need to find out who exactly this “we” is that calls her Nelle, and why
Oh, in fairness, that is her first name!
Oh! Shows how much I know! I still think the whole thing was weird, esp given that she publishes as Harper, the interviewer referred to her as Harper, AND the dude kept switching back and forth. But slightly less weird now.
Apparently everyone who knows her calls her Nelle; she only went by Harper at all because she was afraid reporters would mispronounce her name as “Nellie.”
The ironic thing for me is that would just be her first and last name–Nelle Lee. Probably she didn’t want to known as Nellie Lee.
Not to mention that the publishing house is ALSO referred to as Harper.
I like to call it Nelle Collins. I met it at a party once.
I don’t think you should get to be like “Oh, I call her Nelle” when you apparently never actually talk to her.
I would reeeally like to know who’s telling him everything he says he’s “been told”, and why the interviewer couldn’t talk to that person instead.
Because that person has been told by lawyers that outright lying to the press is a bad idea, so that person made sure to send an underling who had been deliberately told as little as possible.
Ugh this is so so so sad. I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable reading this book, given this questionable behavior (questionable at best).
ETA: My queasiness is not to say other people shouldn’t read it when published. Just to be clear, no judgement.
Yeah, I mean, I would be really interested in reading this book too! I don’t think anyone should feel bad about the natural curiosity that comes from a situation like this. I just think it’s also a good idea to check and make sure that everyone is going about this in the right way. I wouldn’t say I know definitively that this is a Bad Situation and that reading the sequel would be morally wrong. Just…i’ve got questions!
It’s kinda like the Sony e-mails, in a way… like, OK, hacking them was wrong, and publishing them was wrong, but does that make it wrong to read them? I genuinely am not sure how to work out the moral reasoning on that.
Would you say you think you’re maybe ambivalent?
This may be the one time I think it’s morally defensible to pirate an ebook. I don’t want these creeps getting a single penny for it.
I VERY much want to know how much money the author is going to see
OH THANK GOD. I have so many reservations about this situation and how things just sort of conveniently happen to shake out in a way that will result in a major payout for the publishing house. Everything about this situation is fishy enough to smell like the garbage behind a fishmonger who sells only the finest rotten fish and just had a very bad day.
Co-sign. And also it’s in the middle of a heat wave.
And his apprentice came from the Battersea Typhoid Hospital.
It was the “one must imagine” that did it for me.
One would prefer not to imagine, one would prefer unequivocal facts.
I went from being in dire need of a paper bag owing to joyous hyperventilation to feeling skeeved and uncertain.
And if they have said everywhere that is is unedited, why speak to the editor who has been left out of every step of the thing?
As you point out, the only substance to the piece is the lack thereof and a lingering whiff of potential odiousness.
I cannot disagree that the entire thing seems shady as hell. People on my facebook were getting excited about it all over the place and all I could think was “how does this not seem super shady to you?!”
Yes! So much excitement, and when I commented about the shadiness, everyone was like “NO BUT SHE SAID — !” No, the publisher issued a statement on her behalf, but then seemed not to have actually spoken to her.
yeeeeeah I have seen a lot of comments around the internet that are basically I WANT TO BELIEVE. I mean, I want to also, but all these smart folks saying “But the New York Times said so!”
Actually, according to the Michelle Dean article, she’s in an assisted living facility. That’s different from a nursing home – those are basically hospitals focused on gerontology. Assisted living means having an apartment in a community of other older folks, where you get checked on several times a day and you might get help with bathing and getting dressed and making sure you take your meds. There’s generally a common meal area – where my mom lives, it’s a requirement that everyone show up for dinner; that’s how they keep track of them all, particularly the ones who don’t need checking up on, because they might fall through the cracks.
So this implies she’s a little more “with it” than “nursing home” does.
That all said, this sounds monstrously exploitative anyway, and I don’t like these evasive answers one bit. That lawyer is not to be trusted.
Oh, that’s really helpful to know! i wasn’t aware of that distinction.
Yeah, the only reason I know it is because my mom is in an assisted living facility, although she doesn’t get assistance yet; she’s thinking ahead to when she will need it. Now, for her, it’s sort of like a geriatric dorm with activities. She loves it. And she feels secure – because she knows that when the time comes for her to need help, it’s right there.
Assisted living vs nursing home is just a level of nuance that adds to the complexity of this situation – “assisted living” implies more independence.
But again, yeah, this smacks of disrespect and greed.
I don’t know that this tells us much, because a lot of those communities have a progressive network of housing. Essentially, you can start in a small house or apartment where you’re independent, transition to the assisted living situation you describe, and then transition to a nursing home or hospice if you go “downhill.” So, it is possible that Lee was in assisted living in 2007 as Dean says, and has since transitioned to a nursing home.
Agreed with the overall points though!
Yeah, I agree with all of this. There are lots of reasons to go into assisted living, but usually it’s some sort of decreased physical mobility or mental capacity. In my experience, they’re pretty good at smoothly transitioning you from what’s basically “old people’s college dorm yay” to full-on nursing care depending what you need. That said, my grandmother is (seemingly) one of the most with-it folks in her facility, but she does have some dementia, and her memory/mental state varies a lot
depending on the day or even time of day. And oh man, I would NOT think it was chill for her to just be signing legal contracts, esp. if the rest of the family weren’t there to act as advocates & explain what’s going on. So, like everyone, can’t guess exactly what’s going on with Nelle, but a lot of it sounds very sketchy.
True, although without knowing more about the place it’s hard to say how likely it is that she really is competent to advocate for herself. Some places have both assisted living and nursing home facilities in the same building and residents commonly transfer from one to the other, for example – if she were in one of those, the fact that she moved in as an assisted living resident wouldn’t say much about her current condition.
Yes, that’s true. Yeah, I think the point we need to emphasize is that we can’t derive from these terms much of an indication as to a person’s overall intellectual capacity.
And to add to the confusion — and not that this has anything to do with Harper Lee (I mean, Nelle) — a lot of people with dementia live in much more supportive “assisted living” places, because they don’t necessarily have medical needs, but do need a lot of day-to-day care.
That’s about the situation my grandma is in. Her dementia is so advanced that she can’t have a conversation, but the place she lives is more like a house than a hospital and her body is actually in relatively good shape.
Or it would be, if she didn’t keep injuring herself every time she stood up because she doesn’t understand why she shouldn’t be walking around after injuring herself from standing up on her last injury.
Never get dementia.
Yeah, my grandmother lives in an assisted living facility, and she’s in good enough health, even with her dementia, that she’s allowed to come and go as she chooses (but has to sign out and back in so they know), but I sure as hell wouldn’t want her signing contracts without someone to make sure she understands and someone to advocate for her. I live on the other side of the country, so I don’t see her much, but last time I did she was talking to inanimate objects in an excessive way… but she might have been fucking with me, I honestly could not tell.
Yeah, I would actually say that most places have some sort of sliding scale system of support, only because the nature of being old is you get worse over time :/
(Ugh this is all so depressing)
Erm, then why don’t they actually talk to her?
Because she might (likely would) say Stop!
So much money at stake. So much greed.
Is she actually in an assisted living facility, or is that where her editor, who probably couldn’t tell you his own name, says she’s living?
yeah no part of that interview didn’t read like a cry for help/hostage situation- the wide-eyed PLEASE IGNORE MY CALMLY MODULATED VOICE AND NOTIFY THE AUTHORITIES THAT SHIT IS GOING DOWN, I CANNOT SAY ANYTHING OR THEY WILL HURT ME.
Nelle. Order a pizza or call the Toasties, we will come get you. My heart hurts thinking about the poor lamb.
I so very much want yesterday to have been an alternate-universe divergence point where Skeptical Critical Thinker Emily can raise many eyebrows and never read the book out of deference to Harper Lee, while Book Lover Emily can willfully ignore all skeeviness and just go all in on devouring the novel on its release date.
(Emily Who Has Learned A Lot More About Race Relations In America Since First Falling In Love With TKAM is alive & well in both these scenarios, so, we all gotta deal with HER downer opinions.)
I feel the same, as it stands for me personally right now I feel like if I read the book it would be like I stole from her.
I love this Our Many Selves dialogue without ANY reservations from my Nathalie who delights in a person who can name her divergent points of view so succinctly! Write a Play!
I’m going to need all the side-eye gifs in existence to explain how I feel about that interview.
:::Tina Belcher moaning:::
You have perfectly summed up my only reply to all of this!
This is so utterly heartbreaking.
My mom actually called me yesterday to discuss the whole thing, because I had posted that article and she read it. She’s definitely going to read it, because TKAM is her favorite book of all time and this is more or less her dream, but I’m still seriously torn. The whole thing just sounds so sketchy and concerning and there are probably Bad Things happening but I WANT TO READ THE BOOK SO BADLY.
Seriously. I’d just finished reading Michelle Dean’s article when the Vulture interview came out, and so when the editor said that the only contact was with Harper Lee’s lawyer, AND that said lawyer was the one who suddenly found the manuscript, I said “Oh nooooo” out loud.
I keep trying to come up with best-case scenarios, and try not to assume that Harper Lee has no agency, just because she’s deaf and is living in an assisted-living facility. But oh boy, do I feel uneasy about this situation.
Yeah, I mean, I would not say that “deafness” or “requiring care” makes you unable to speak for yourself, just that when you compound her physical limitations with the fact that it seems like no one has ACTUALLY TALKED TO HER, it raises questions.
Exactly. I feel like there’s a lot of wilful ignorance on the publisher’s side. Considering that people with power of attorney can easily abuse that power (to the point that my home province is revising laws to allow for protections in those cases), I would hope for more confirmation of Harper Lee’s consent than “Her lawyer says it’s okay! She can’t hear, and she lives in Alabama, so we’re not going to investigate this any further!”
But that’s why I was also weirded out by the “she’s basically deaf and nearly blind, so we can’t communicate with her very well” line. My grandfather was also in an assisted-living facility, as is my nearly-blind grandmother, and the facility had many, many options to support communication. It’s like they want to play both the consent and the unable-to-consent cards?
I also read a release from some other source who was basically already saying, “This book is the embarrassing first attempt from an author who had not yet written ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ so don’t expect too much,” which also rubbed me the wrong way. I’m all kinds of hesitant/ambivalent about this situation.
Agreed. If it’s hard to talk to her on the phone, which it very well might be, it’s MAYBE worth her editor’s (her editor’s!) time and money to go visit her in person and take advantage of the no doubt many facilities they have to assist communication.
This is all just so terrible. I heard the news yesterday and read the press release and — having known next to nothing about the life of Harper Lee and the legal issues surrounding her — was absolutely thrilled. Then I read this and a few other articles and just got so depressed.
“It’s like they want to play both the consent and the unable-to-consent cards?”
Schrödinger’s Assisted Living Facility
This just fills me with anger. When my grandfather was suffering from Alzheimer’s, some people took advantage of his poor state of mind and basically got him to sign over all sorts of things. Which has also happened with Harper Lee earlier, when some asshole lit agent got her to sign over the copyright to Mockingbird to him. This just stinks of exploitation.
In case it comes up, Alabama has an “elder financial exploitation” law, Section 13A-6-195, and the penalty when the value of property taken exceeds $2,500, it’s a class B felony, rating 2-20 years.
That makes things interesting.
Thank you! As soon as I started digging into this story I was biding my time carefully for The Toast to cover it. While the whole thing is sketchy, the thing that made me give the biggest amount o side eye is that this is a first draft of a completed novel. She wrote it, the editor said, “Try this” and then she wrote a new book. As a writer myself the thought of somebody releasing my barely edited, rejected first drafts makes me feel queasy. Given how much of a perfectionist she was, and how carefully she wrote and re-wrote the other novels she shelved through the years, it’s hard for me to believe she’d have such a drastic and sudden change of heart–conveniently three months after her biggest advocate died.
OH MY GOD YES THIS.
I’m also in total disbelief that any self-respecting editor would WANT to do something like that, let alone Harper Lee herself. In an interview rife with red flags, “it won’t be edited” was probably the biggest one for me.
It seems to me that many editors can be likened to pimps – they’re in it for the money, honey.
So glad you put all this together. The conversation on Twitter last night still had me thinking, and I grew more skeptical the more I thought about it.
That’s nice. Now I’ll wait for someone to do some journalism, rather than speculation.
I hope a journalist does! (Yours, of course, wasn’t nice; it was needlessly condescending, but you already knew that.)
Also, being shirty at a humorous blogger for raising questions while not being a journalist is rather like getting angry with me for pointing out some smoke in the distance while not being a fireman – I’m simply not one!
Hey, I’m a toast fan, and forgive, me, but yes, it’s clear you are not a journalist. Forgive me if I was meant to understand this as a humorous piece.
However, given that I did not, and apparently others did not, read it as such, I’m not sure what your rather alarmist, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” take is meant to accomplish, either. Some of what you write is misleading – the additional, fictive Q&A I mentioned in a response to another comment (which I predict will get quoted as part of the original interview by those who don’t bother to read it, but only read yours), and it is clear by the comments that many read you as saying that Van Dusen had only met Lee once, when from the interview, this is clearly not the case.
Are there some questions I would like to see asked and answered? Absolutely. It seems unusual that her editor would not know about this book until the public announcement, but on the other hand, I don’t know the ins and outs of publishing or HarperCollins well enough to know how much the role of editor has shifted in the last few decades (it was only about twenty years ago that I learned that direct submission of manuscripts to publishers was no longer the route to publication, for instance). I do feel I’ve read of plenty of authors who have very limited contact with their publishers, with the publishers generally taking a kid-glove approach to the more prickly ones. I do not know what the case is here: neither do you, I gather. I would be curious, if her editor is not involved, who or what department *is* involved in the book’s publication.
As another commenter points out, a great deal seems to hinge on Lee’s lawyer (and perhaps on her late sister, at that). I’d very much like to see and hear more about her. It seems that, beyond the issue of agency, the big red flag would be the question of possible forgery – and yes, that hinges on Lee’s competence, too – she is quoted as saying she wrote this and submitted it and thought it lost; it is the lost manuscript? On the other hand, is there any compelling reason to think it’s not?
There have been some fraudster authors in the last few years, and big publishers that failed to fact-check (in fact, I gather that magazine and news articles are much, much more likely to be fact-checked than book-length non-fiction, disturbingly) books they had to recall, as well as missing some big-deal plagiarism, so the big publishing houses are clearly not infallible. I would hope HC has done this all well and above board, with care and diligence, but that’s not a given, it’s true. It is in their interest to do so, however, as the consequences of what could essentially be fraud would be huge.
Lastly, I would expect that this book would be published, unless Lee destroyed it, eventually. Would it be better that happened after her death, with only her estate to benefit, or now, when she is alive?
I don’t see any problem with raising questions, but I don’t see any benefit to alarmist speculation, either. I look forward to more information, and hope Publishers Weekly, the New York Times, or another news outlet will do its work investigating and reporting, for all our benefit.
And as to “needless condescension,” well, as you say, I’m not Nice. I saw your piece soon after I saw Jezebel’s, but responded to you because, well, partly because two pieces in a row, sheesh, but also because your writing is better and I don’t expect much from them on the journalistic standards front.
What on earth has led you to believe that Mallory has ever used her platform to attempt Serious Investigative Journalism or was doing so now? Was it this?
While we’re spotting smoke and yelling fire, I’m now just assuming you might be affiliated with Harper Lee’s publisher in some way. 🙂 not that I’m a Serious Investigative Journalist *gets popcorn*
Um, highlighting those parts of an interview for people who wouldn’t otherwise have read the whole thing (like me) is a HUGE service. Mallory is exercising a ton of restraint in not making any actual accusations; she’s just laying out all the sketchiness of the editor’s statements, which are legitimately alarming all on their own.
Re-parsing the interview at greater length than it was published, and adding, confusingly, a fictitious question and answer, while omitting some salient context from the actual interview, is not that much of a service.
For those who couldn’t be bothered to click through to read the interview and judge it for themselves (and of course, why would you? What good could having more information possibly do?), here’s another bit I thought interesting:
“There’s this rumor about her that’s been prevalent for decades that she’s a recluse, which is absolute nonsense. She’s not a recluse. When my wife and I went to visit her in hospital after the stroke to see her, the room was filled with wonderful women friends of Nelle’s who were all caring for her and helping her and comforting her. She’s not a recluse at all. She just doesn’t like publicity.”
Here’s a thought: many, many people would not have read the original interview for a lot of pretty justified reasons, including (all of these apply in my case):
1) I didn’t know it existed
2) I work full-time and have other obligations and there’s only so many things I can read in a day, so
3) Even if I had known it existed, I wouldn’t have thought it newsworthy (unless I knew what it contained, which Mallory was good enough to illuminate)
It’s not just about laziness, y’know.
So I am glad one of my favorite sites recapped it for me, with a link to the original interview so I can see it all for myself, if I now so desire.
The fictitious Q&A is not formatted as a quote, like the actual quotes are. It’s not that confusing.
I don’t think that quote you added has anything to do with whether or not she’s informed and consenting to have this book published.
Are you determined to have a bad time here?
Yep, the book was unlikely to make it to the top of my To Read list in this lifetime, so I certainly wouldn’t have clicked on a link to a discussion with the editor as I really don’t care. I DO care about elderly people being taken advantage of, so Mallory doing this run down of excerpts was useful to me and meant that I actually did go and read the interview.
I also have basic literacy skills, so I wasn’t confused by the fake Q&A.
And then there are people like me, who
1. read the original interview and thought “… hmm, something seems off here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I wish I had the time to analyze this better, but I just don’t.”
2. came here and saw that, hey, someone did exactly that, with humorous asides and exaggerations in addition to — and I stress, not in place of — a dissection of the original.
3. is perfectly capable of distinguishing what is a quote from the original, what is not, and what is a humorous summary of edited quotes previously described.
Adding, confusingly, a fictitious question and answer
You seem to be a fan of Serious Journalism. You may be interested to know that in Serious Journalism, block quotes indicate a quotation taken directly from the source. Not using quotation marks of any kind – as in the fictitious Q&A – indicates that the writer is not, in fact, quoting. Please see your AP Stylebook should you have any further confusion, and/or any professionally-written publication you have ever read in your life.
I think you are the only person who found the fictitious Q&A section confusing. Everybody else was pretty clear that it was written by Mallory, not Harper Collins.
“I thought Katie was picking you up?”
Harper Lee’s new book is clearly being published by the Hey Ladies.
This is really neither here nor there, but it is pretty baller that Harper Lee’s sister Alice practiced law until she was 100.
To Fuck Up a Mockingbird
gotta hear both sides?
Who’s the other side? The editor is on the side of the publisher, defending them pretty insistently, with a clear lack of grounds to do so.
the other side is $$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$, I believe
Harper Lee: the other side?
It would be GREAT to hear from her, but I’d have thought Mallory’s post was on her side, so Samk12345 confused me.
I am also confused and trying to parse Samk12345. I guess you’re right though – the other side to “all the money, woo!” is “maybe we should ask the author?”. Once Harper Lee expresses an opinion, the waveform collapses.
I was making a bad joke, apologies!
Goodness, anywhere else this misunderstanding would have devolved into a stupid argument. Y’all are delightful people with a knack for straightening things out, and I like you.
I was making a bad joke, apologies!
Not to mention, do we even know if Harper Lee actually wrote this manuscript that somehow went unnoticed forever? Someone find out if Tonja Carter purchased an old typewriter in the last six months, is what I’m saying.
I would be 50000% unsurprised if that happened, ngl.
And they aren’t going to edit it!
hoooooooooo boy
“I’ve heard she’s hard to get in touch with” Harper Lee has not actually taken to the sea! She lives in an assisted living facility in Alabama! BUY A PLANE TICKET.
Also…you’re her editor. Surely if there’s anyone who can contact her directly, it’s you? This doesn’t sound like a second-hand information scenario, to me. Who, exactly, did you hear this from?
[files “Harper Lee takes to the sea post-TKAM” in folder marked “Alternate Biographies I Would Read The Hell Out Of”]
Go to Alabama? The legends say some men have ventured that far from the New York metropolitan area. Never again were they heard from; the risk is simply too great.
There’s no BRUNCH in Alabama!!!
I am really torn about this one. On the one hand, HL made it quite clear, many times, that she did not want to publish another book during her lifetime. On the other hand, people often do re-consider their literary legacy at the end of their lives — but, you know, usually we hear a bit more from them on the topic, rather than just a line in a press release.
Has anyone reported whether the lawyer has a financial stake in the sale of this work? I am speaking here of a direct commission or percentage of sales. If the lawyer is functioning as an agent and is getting 15% of the author’s royalties and HC is printing 2 million copies of this (and that’s only the first printing), that is going to be a large sum of money (high six figures in my most conservative estimates.)
Also, it’s not unusual that for an author of this caliber, by which I mean an author who brings a massive amount of money for a publisher with basically no advertising or publicity investment, the whole deal would be done by higher-ups/directors/CEO type folk and then handed off to an editor with little to no warning. It IS unusual, and frankly pretty stupid of HarperCollins, to make that editor available for an interview, especially before everyone has gotten their stories straight or has all the information they need to do their job and/or understand the situation.
TKAM still sells incredibly well, and presumably makes the publishing company a not insignificant amount of money with basically no work needed. So buy a damn plane ticket, fly people to Alabama and figure out what is going on. Not hard at all
::Mentally replaces everything “s” in the editor’s replies with a dollar sign::
Oh, ok, now this interview makes sense.
That works, but I’m wondering now — the editor’s remarks are so unpolished, I’m wondering if he isn’t feeling some skeeviness about this, too. He’s not looking to claim he knows more than he does, even when it would look a hell of a lot better. Especially with the whole “I learned about this yesterday, it’s been kept hugely secret even within the company” admission.
So many thoughts on this!
1. If your only acquaintance with an author is at a social gathering, I don’t think you get to call yourself their “editor”. Particularly if their manuscript is being published unedited.
2. A unedited manuscript of a first novel, rejected by her publisher, should only be published as part of a posthumous “unfinished works” collection.
3. What deitybox said.
Look at it this way, if it wasn’t a BOOK but the thing found was nude pictures of a famous person who can’t consent to their publication so they just published them because they can.
Same issue NO CONSENT
HOLY SHIT I did not know any of this! I just saw the headline. Oh man, thank you for bringing all the sketchiness to my attention.
Disclaimer: I’m an attorney and none of this is legal advice.
Tonja Carter is both Harper Lee’s attorney and power of attorney, which gives her an ironclad power to speak for her and to make decisions for her. So, I think what is likeliest here is that Tonja Carter is giving any and all permissions. I think the image of the blind and deaf Harper Lee having papers thrust in front of her to sign is misleading. Tonja is running the show, making the decisions, signing the paperwork, and Harper Lee empowered her to do that at an earlier point in her life. While it would be nice for the publisher to check in on Harper Lee’s health and well being and consent, with Tonja having POA and being her attorney, standard practice would be to not check in on Harper Lee and take Tonja’s word for it, and indeed, Tonja may have stonewalled any efforts. And I suspect the publisher is tiptoeing around saying that precisely because a happy press release from one of America’s great female authors is more appealing than “look, she has diminished capacity, her POA and attorney found this book and signed us the rights and we’re going to make bank and what Harper Lee doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
So: is the publisher out for money? Absolutely. Have they talked to Harper Lee? I seriously doubt it, and it is skeevy that they are sorta lying about it! But I think they are dealing strictly with Tonja in her legal capacity as POA and counsel for Harper Lee, and in a typical situation, that would be sufficient. Indeed, that has probably been practice for years due to Harper Lee’s famous reticence.
In Dean’s piece, sister/lawyer expressed dismay with Tonja’s representation since sister/lawyer had retired. I want to believe that, as an attorney, Tonja is doing an ethical job and honoring what her client’s wishes are or would be if she was at full capacity. I can say in my personal experience, representing clients experience some dementia (obviously, no idea if Harper Lee is), is incredibly difficult. Their competence varies and what they agree to one day, they revoke the next. In Dean’s piece, that seemed to be Mills’ experience with Harper Lee when she was in her most cognizant days. But the focus here should really be on Tonja Carter and if she is ethically representing Harper Lee. And the fact is, even if this goes against Harper Lee’s true wishes, she empowered Tonja to be her decision-making representative, and barring a finding that Harper Lee was incompetent when she signed the POA, or she becomes competent enough to terminate the POA, Tonja Carter’s decisions are going to stand.
That’s informative! Thank you. I really hope someone does heavy investigation into this, because it’s pretty terrifying.
That is very interesting and also gross!
SOME LIFE TIPS, not legal advice:
1. Draw up some paperwork granting someone a Power of Attorney should you become incapacitated. Make sure it’s someone you trust AND who has a good head on their shoulders, because they’re who makes sure your rent gets paid and your taxes get filed when you’re in a coma.
2. Don’t make your actual attorney your power of attorney.
You can actually have different Power of Attorneys responsible for different things–ie someone responsible for financial decisions, someone responsible for personal decisions (eg who can visit you, medical decisions). Too many cooks is a bad thing, but a lack of checks and balances is too. But I would (BEST GUESS) think Tonja Carter has full Power of Attorney over a diminished capacity Lee Harper, which means she can conduct all of her affairs and without an obvious signal of abuse, there’s nothing to really stop her.
What broke my heart about Michelle Dean’s piece was it seemed like Alice (sister-lawyer) and Harper Lee ended up in different care facilities at the end of Alice’s life, which is not the choice I would think someone seeking Lee’s best interest would make.
I had no idea that Harper and Alice were in different facilities so that last sentence just breaks my heart.
Very good points.
Also, I don’t know what Harper Lee’s financial situation is– I could imagine that someone who only published one book during their lifetime (and who might not have gotten the most generous deal at the time, being an unknown first-time author) might be hurting for money in her old age. If I’m being generous, I could imagine a POA having difficulty weighing those kinds of concerns (i.e., her present comfort and ability to pay for care) against her longstanding desire for privacy.
TKAM has sold 40K+ copies (across all print editions) so far this calendar year (so, January), which appears to be a typical one for the sales of this book, so unless her contract actually says “we do not pay you royalties,” she is doing fine.
That’s not to say her attorney (or other parties, I don’t know enough about her to say) aren’t greedy for MORE money.
And the thing about POA is that the attorney is, for legal purposes, ‘Harper Lee’. The idea of authorial integrity just doesn’t mix well with legal personhood in POA situations.
What makes this really uncomfortable is that the author is alive but her capacity is limited and there’s recent history of exploitation. We know what happens when authors die: some literary estates can and do publish drafts and scribbles and sweepings in an attempt to keep milking the cash cow; conversely, others spend their time blocking publication or citation or scholarly research. This feels like an attempt to jump the gun on the literary-estate process while the author herself is still around… somewhere out of reach. It’s unseemly.
That is informative and clear and I thank you very much. Your comment about dealing with people with dementia really hit home for me – coping with the varying levels of presence/coherence is extremely tricky and their wishes on a topic, especially an emotionally fraught one, are likely to vacillate.
I hope what the lawyer is doing helps Harper Lee afford truly spectacular end of life care.
My take-away was that it all hinges on the lawyer, too.
I have to admit that if Lee died and her literary executor had chosen to publish it over Lee’s express directive to the contrary I wouldn’t actually be troubled by that: Kafka had directed that his work be burned after his death, and I’ve never felt bothered that it was not. If you feel the same way I do about the Kafka situation — which you may not, but if you do happen to be among those persons who don’t feel bothered by the Kafka situation — then the only potential issue here is “old person not treated respectfully,” and there are much more compelling examples of that problem than “old lady handed giant stack of cash for manuscript she wrote years ago.”
But we draw a distinction between works published during an author’s lifetime and posthumous ones: we assume a degree of agency in publishing, that a living author is saying ‘judge this alongside everything else’. Here, we’re not so sure where the agency lines: to use the language of fandom, we don’t know whether it’s canon.
To be fair, what if the place where Harper Lee is living is staffed entirely by dragons, and only her lawyer has a pure enough heart to cross the threshold?
I am… tentatively withholding judgement. I think people have an image of Harper Lee that is not necessarily who she actually is, as some antisocial recluse who never ever talks to anyone. She travels! She has friends! She goes to awards ceremonies! And while she may be mostly deaf and mostly blind, I don’t think I’ve read anywhere that she’s actually senile or suffering from dementia. So… withholding judgment. For now.
That makes sense, I think! The worry I have is that last year someone unscrupulous convinced her to sign away the copyright to Mockingbird – which is pretty clearly exploitative of someone who’s signing things they’re not quite grasping – and her advocates had to sue to get it returned to her.
“I’m sure that’s what happened.”
I think I’m 99% sure we’re not engaging in some sort of shameful, cash-grabbing deception, at least that’s what I’ve been told by Legal. All I know for sure is, I met her at that party and she LOVES canapés.
Interviewer: Has it been edited?
Her Editor: If it has been edited, nobody’s told me.
WHAT EVEN IS AN EDITOR THEN
THIS
In my naivete, I had always imagined that describing yourself as “(So-and-so’s) editor” meant that you had personally edited their work. Or at least had more than two lunches with them.
I am DEEPLY CONFUSED as to what this person actually does.
“Van Dusen, who’s been working with Lee for years…”
IN WHAT CAPACITY, IF HE DOES NOT TALK TO HER NOR HAS HE EDITED HER MANUSCRIPT??
While there is something weird about the editor interview, I have to say that the situation as presented doesn’t sound that odd to me. You have to remember that at the time this ms. was created, making multiple copies was difficult and expensive. I’m not even certain a first-time author would even have thought about making a copy–it’s the kind of thing that Advice to Young Authors of the midcentury were suggesting in a kind of “this is what the pros know, kiddo–and would never have occurred to you” tone. So if there’s only one copy floating around, and it’s gotten stuck in with other papers, it’s exactly right after the life-long attorney died and the new one is sorting through things that you’d expect this to turn up. As to whether it’s publishable–I don’t know what Lee’s original editor was like and what their relationship was, but “I was a first time author and I did what my editor told me” just tells me that the editor was interested in the first ms. but there was something that caught their eye about Scout and led to the development of TKAMB, but clearly the first ms. was good enough to catch their eye in the first place. It could come down as much to the tastes and interests of the editor as the sophistication of the ms. as to which got published first. I’d also want to know if there were plans to publish the first ms. as well that got shelved after Lee decided she didn’t like being a celebrity author. At this point in her life, she may just be thinking “what the hell have I got to lose? They’re not going to hound a frail old lady in an assisted living facility.”
I woke up this morning wondering if The Toast would have just this sort of article posted today. That sounds weird.
And Mallory came through, asking every single question I had about Harper Lee and this old-new book.
The world is righted once again.
“the Toast will address this issue if it’s worth addressing and i’ll think about it then and only then” is my new personal mantra when coming across confusing, heavy, and/or rage inducing news these days.
SKETCHINESS ABOUNDS
I’m friends with novelists and editors at major publishing houses and this just rings so many bells. The BAD KIND of bells. If a manuscript had been untouched for even a few years wouldn’t someone be taking a look at it? This sounds like either the author is too incapacitated to review her own manuscript or they’re just straight-up going behind her back because she still doesn’t want it published. Or she’s out of money and they’re telling her she has to do this (or worse, her new lawyer is telling her she’s out of money).
Why did anyone even interview this person and think it was acceptable to publish it? More importantly why didn’t the interviewer ask, “So do you even know anything about this? Are you even relevant to the situation at hand? No? In that case can you give me the name and number of a person who was actually involved?
Why the hell does he call her ‘Nelle’ when he doesn’t know her? Calling her Nelle is akin to my calling the President ‘Barry’ because, like, he’s cool and I wish we were friends.
My FIRST QUESTION on hearing about a new novel was “huh, that’s strange; she’s always been adamant about not publishing anything else; what made her change her mind?” Only then did my brain have space to say, “I’d love to read more Harper Lee.” My VERY first thought was “whoa, really, why?” I, a knucklehead who read To Kill A Mockingbird a few times and otherwise doesn’t know much about Lee’s career, absolutely cannot be the only one. I cannot believe her editor thought no one would ask this. I cannot believe her editor himself did not ask this. And then, as yesterday passed and NO ONE had any decent answer to that question, I got very, very, very concerned. I’m so glad you wrote this, Mallory.
I love the use of the word “valuable” to describe her as an author. bit of a slip.
I’m not buying the official party line at all — that this manuscript was lost and now found after all these years. I think if Harper Lee wanted it published, it would have been published. She is likely being taken advantage of, which is sad. I’m still going to read it though.
Another prickly, evasive reference to the press release from HarperCollins in the Guardian:
“Jonathan Burnham, senior vice-president at Harper, said: ‘Harper Lee was delighted to learn of the discovery of the manuscript of Go Set a Watchman, and – as her statement in the press release attests – is very happy to see this novel published at long last. To suggest otherwise is completely unacceptable.'”
THE HOSTAGE IS FINE. I REFER YOU TO THE HOSTAGE VIDEO.
how is he “Harper Lee’s editor” if her only published book was released before he was born(?) and her unpublished book hasn’t been edited by anyone
Shameful. This first draft of Mockingbird — that’s what it is — needs to stay unpublished. It serves no purpose for Lee and only greed drives the publication. There will be a backlash.
In another interview they state that Harper Lee’s agent went down there and talked to her, and that she is “a voracious reader.” So… yeah, pretty blind, definitely.
Not to defend the editors all that hard, because there is clearly much sketch here, but we have a ton of voracious readers come into my library who are also little old ladies and men with acute visual impairment. They take large print books, they listen to audiobooks, they have others read to them, and they use assistive technology from magnifying glasses to full-screen viewers to e-readers. The world of books doesn’t end for big readers when their sight starts to go or when it goes completely. Sorry- it’s a bit of a sore subject.
HarperCollins is part of the Murdoch News Corp octopus. Would it be any surprise if its employees acted unscrupulously?
Assisted living does not necessarily mean more “with it.”
It is not as if a person who is blind or becoming blind or deaf or becoming deaf cannot communicate. I smell a rat.
I work for an organization that was trying to commission a new theatrical piece based on Mockingbird (not a straight adaptation). People were sent, overtures were made…we were told to go through the pastor, and there’s lots of “the close personal friend” kind of connections, and well, it all seemed SO SHADY. We gave up on the idea. It would have been really great, but we got close enough to know…there was no way we could get the kind of real artistic sign off that would make us MORALLY and ARTISTICALLY comfortable. Could we have swung it legally? Possibly, but…yeah, not our bag. Which is mostly to add: Yeah, this is no good.
I don’t see this being significantly different from what would happen if the manuscript were found after Harper Lee died. In neither case would Harper Lee have a say in the matter. In either case, the book would be published. In either case, people would read it.
If, when she was of sound mind and body, she didn’t want the book published, she could have asked that it not be. She didn’t.
And even when authors say “I don’t want this published after my death,” those wishes are not necessarily respected (especially when there’s money involved). Authors know this. Harper Lee was no fool.
I don’t know all the facts about this. But from what I know now, it doesn’t seem like something we should worry about.
If you really want to find out the truth, go to the source, of course of course. ‘Bama isn’t impossible to find, though it’s hot as hell.
That is informative and clear and I thank you very much. Your comment about dealing with people with dementia really hit home for me – coping with the varying levels of presence/coherence is extremely tricky and their wishes on a topic, especially an emotionally fraught one, are likely to vacillate.
I hope what the lawyer is doing helps Harper Lee afford truly spectacular end of life care.
I VERY much want to know how much money the author is going to see
Honestly, by saying for years she doesn't want anything published, what else was she supposed to say while of sound mind and body if wanted them to really not publish anything? Anything implies ANYthing, so even a manuscript she thought was lost and therefore didnt name and is later found would be covered under that.
Additionally, I dislike the comparisons with the situation of after her death. A lot of artists are aware that any control they might have over their products disappears once they are dead, but for most the comfort is that they are no longer around to see it happening. While she is alive and after she is dead are two hugely different situations, because in one she is still here. Even legally, your will and your body have different protections while you are alive, compared to once you are dead, so saying she should basically suck it up or she doesn't mind even if they are going behind her back because this would happen in a few years anyway, is in my mind not ok.
“a very elderly woman who lives in a nursing home and has diminished capacity.”
So very tired of this. I love your stuff, and I love this piece, but if Lee were a man and/or a resident of someplace other than a southern state, the buzz would not be about whether or not she’s a rube (my word, not yours, but it’s a fair précis of the current narrative in the media) or “elderly” or “diminished.”
I dunno, I recall a lot of suspicion and speculation about manipulation along similar lines when a small press publisher claimed to have gotten the rights to publish “Hapsworth 16, 1924” in the 90s, and Salinger was a man who was not the resident of a Southern state. If anything, I think Lee being a woman is leading more people to accept the publisher’s word on this, because women are not supposed to be “reclusive”.
What would Atticus do?