true, smart entrepreneurial represents so much of the american care nurse. this is a wonderful biography of. finally in dying every day. i happen to love ancient roman history. this book is all about the roman poet who asserted the artist in residence at the court of europe and sort of the odd juxtapositions between this thoughtful man and this type and how he tried to survive while being on the other hand a senior at visor. ..

>> 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 hasn't 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 1960's court house and thought they didn't 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 walk-in 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 hasn't 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 long-time 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 break-in 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 wasn't 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 wouldn't 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 didn't edit this. >> host: nelly is in new york, living in a cold water flat a friendly-family gave her money to write for a year and then she sort of furiously writes turning in 50-70 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 didn't 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 30's filling us in on things the 9-year-old scout couldn't 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 1930's 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 9-year-old 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 9-year-old 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 free-standing 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 doesn't 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 don't 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, let's 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 couldn't 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 mid-1970s 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 non-descrip one story mansion. you are looking for harper lee's 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 wasn't 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 don't 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 didn't really get the sense it is a touchy relationship and i don't think she cared for the town much. i think she was just glad to be done. >> guest: harperer lee doesn't 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 show-down about

bringing these children into the church. so there is that kind of suspicion running on all sides. we don't have saints and sinners. we have people affected by the circumstances. getting to new york harper lee couldn't 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. alice's declared she was tired of the business connected with family life in harper lee's success and wanted her sister to shoulder some of the burden. >> host: mel's 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 didn't learn from it. >> guest: realize "to killing a mockingbird" was not talked about until 1984. and asked why it wasn't taught

early and they said it offended too many people. >> host: this is one of the reasons perhaps why they didn't 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 t-shirts 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 doesn't care for you she doesn't 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 t-shirts with "to killing a mockingbird" and they didn't 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 wasn't taught until the 1980's. 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 don't think it peaked at any point like my home town. in the civil war the town was founded by the 1830's 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 didn't have paved streets and such. >> guest: there there people that love that story and wouldn't 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: couldn't 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 wasn't 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 don't 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 didn't 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 one-story 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 couldn't 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 don't 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 didn't 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 mel's papers were not on file and there wasn't 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 i'm 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 grandfather's 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 father's 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 don't 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 didn't do the knock-knock 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 didn't 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 don't 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 don't 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 lee's 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 doesn't 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 doesn't have to be second-guessed, 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 30-40 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 alice's 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 let's 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 don't 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 20's 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 doesn't 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 isn't 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 three-piece shoot on. we was not one-shot 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 everybody's 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: mid-20s. >> 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 don't 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 don't 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.