Posted on 02/19/2016 7:51:13 AM PST by Borges
Nelle Harper Lee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 for her book, "To Kill a Mockingbird," has died at the age of 89, multiple sources in her hometown of Monroeville confirmed Friday morning.
Lee was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee.
As a child, Lee attended elementary school and high school just a few blocks from her house on Alabama Avenue. In a March 1964 interview, she offered this capsule view of her childhood: "I was born in a little town called Monroeville, Alabama, on April 28, 1926. I went to school in the local grammar school, went to high school there, and then went to the University of Alabama. That's about it, as far as education goes."
She moved to New York in 1949, where she worked as an airlines reservations clerk while pursuing a writing career. Eight years later, Lee submitted her manuscript for "To Kill a Mockingbird" to J.B. Lippincott & Co., which asked her to rewrite it.
On July 11, 1960, Lee's novel was published by Lippincott with critical and commercial success. The author won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the following year.
The film adaptation of the novel, with Mary Badham as Scout, opened on Christmas Day of 1962 and was an instant hit.
Harper Lee suffered a stroke in 2007, recovered and resumed her life in the hometown where she spent many of her 89 years. A guardedly private individual, Lee was respected and protected by residents of the town that displays Mockingbird-themed murals and each year stages theatrical productions of "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Lee returned to Monroeville for good once her sister Alice became ill and needed help. She'd eat breakfast each morning at the same fast-food place, and could later be seen picking up Alice from the law firm founded by their father.
Services for Lee have not been announced.
I had come across that as well. Tom Wolfe is one of the great essayists of our time.
She wrote only two books....................
Right— him and his upbringing in a private school in HI raised by white grandparents, helps him “get down” with the brothers. Oh yeah— count on some sort of BS. Accompanied by the usual suspects and the current crop of PC full of themselves BLM pablum pushers...like Ta-Nihisi Coates (what a waste of time narcissist reparations victimhood pusher).
Catcher in the Rye has got to be the worst book ever written..................
We were made to read that piece of trash in HS, circa 1972, when we were supposed to ‘identify’ with the main character. My HS English teacher was fresh out of college, and thought that this book was the greatest thing since Shakespeare. We had to get permission slips signed so that we could read it. Why in hell did she think we would like to read a book about a teenage guy trying to get laid?........Then after that book, we had to read The Sun also Rises, (Hemmingway) about a guy who couldn’t get laid,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I was referring to his morals and values. Not impugning her in any way.
You are supposed to empathize with Holden but realize how many flaws and problems he has. It’s a great novel that captures a specific voice perfectly.
Actually its the reverse .
People who knew Truman said he was no condition to write since he Was dead drunk all the time to write
In Cold Blood and It was Harper who bailed him out since he was way behind on finishing the book .
As a general rule, I agree, and perhaps my post was worded a bit too strongly. But, Go Set a Watchman reads very much like a rough first draft (which is pretty much what it is). Between that and the likelihood of some manipulation of Lee by her lawyer and others (which raises the significant question of whether Lee herself truly wanted to release it), I'm not convinced that it should have been released, at least as it's own work.
Ok!
Stephen King made a remark about the “one hit wonders” of the literary world, i.e., Harper Lee, JD Salinger, etc. “What did they do with all the time they had on their hands? Were they continuing to write and forget about publishing?” Of course King writes every day without fail, and it’s not difficult for him to find a publisher now at all.
How could that be? A lawyer who loves the law— in the classical sense and in upbringing, finds it a duty, his job morally and ethically to defend the innocent as a member of the Court in his county. That’s not hard to grasp. A duty to the law and to the client, above and beyond any allegiance or historical familial bond to a political organization. We don’t have those type of lawyers anymore— pretty much anywhere, but especially not in our divine “gubmint”. They used to be called statesmen.
Salinger published a lot of short fiction in the ‘40s and ‘50s.
“Just saw a comment by a guy who said she helped destroy the world by moral relativism.”
Times have changed. In the original book, Atticus was portrayed as the hero since he defended an innocent black man from the false rape accusations of a white woman.
Today, we would be expected to believe the woman’s false accusations no matter what, Rolling Stone would publish a major expose about the incident as if it were true, the democrat candidate for president would tweet that the false accuser “has the right to be believed”, the false accuser would carry a mattress around the Maycomb town square every day and be invited to the state of the union speech in Washington. While Atticus might be able to clear the guy eventually, we would never actually learn the identity of the woman as the media would refuse to reveal her name in the interest of “privacy” - while the innocent guy’s reputation would be ruined forever due to conviction by social justice warriors via online social media.
Catcher in the Rye was a classic and well ahead of its time in terms of teenage alienation themes. I loved it as a teenage but as an adult not so much.
In the Sun Also Rises, the protagonist can’t get laid because he was rendered physically incapable by being wounded in World War I.
Saw the movie as a kid decades ago. About the only thing I vividly recall was the rabid dog scene.
I don’t recall. Flannery was distressed with the nihilism she saw. They still do this today, the art world. For example— WHY does “Forrest Gump” have to be a retard, slow witted, but somehow, as such, imbued with deep personal affection and character for people— as if, somehow, intelligent (unhandicapped) people cannot have the same beliefs. By making Forrest “not right” it provides them the opening to make beautiful human heroism and love OK... because that, to the artsie fartsie crowd, is only seen in the defectives.
Bugged me for years— always a Southern retard, or slow speaking or... well name the stereotype that “sells”
Sounds like your teacher would be one of the ones today who gets caught having an affair with one of her students.
That goes back to the Noble Savage or Holy Fool ideas of the Romantics.
True. But gotta say... Lena Dunham has a striking similarity to “Mayella Ewell” of the story. Fabricated rape charges to get attention and cause destruction to an innocent person, coupled with the uh, looks to go with it.
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