Leeward

Today is the birthday of Harper Lee.  For a famous writer she had an odd career.

She published To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960.  A huge success, it won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a highly popular film.  Then she stopped writing.  I guess that book brought in enough of an income that she didn't need to write more. Instead, she went out and helped childhood friends Truman in his research for In Cold Blood.

To Kill A Mockingbird had autobiographical touches, with characters partly based on Lee, Capote and Lee's father.  Then, in 2014, an old manuscript of Lee's was found, Go Set A Watchman.  Though it was published as a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, it's really more an early draft of that work, and to many seemed more a money grab than anything else.

The novel--with politics not quite as progressive as Mockingbird--sold quite well, of course (how could it not?), but disappointed many readers.  One wonders if Lee truly wanted her book out, after years of refusing to write more. I assume, whatever reputation Mockingbird has in the future, it won't be tarnished by the questionable second novel.