Not just no, but hell, no

The life of a recluse has an indescribable charm, which stokes an obsessive curiosity. It is hard to ignore the numerous attempts we journalists make to get a glimpse, however small, into the ordinariness of their lives and what they might reveal. Ask Salinger, Bobby Fischer, Grigori Perelman or even the North Pond, who was forced to come out of hiding after nearly three decades. Harper Lee is no stranger to this. Her standard response to tenacious reporters: Not just no, but hell, no.

Author of the Pulitzer winning To Kill a Mockingbird , she is notorious for bowing out of public life in 1965 and never writing again. When she did make headlines, twice in 2013, it was for the lawsuits she slapped on people. Why didn’t she write again? Why did she shun the limelight — two central questions to any tome on Lee, but answers to which can hardly be found in Marja Mills’ memoirs.

In 2001, Mills, a former

Chicago Tribune reporter, arrives in Monroeville — the fictional Maycomb County — to do a story on Lee’s hometown that thrives on Mockingbird tourism. Every summer, the town puts up a stage-version of the book at the county courthouse, where Atticus argued for Tom Robinson’s acquittal, while Jem, Scout and Dill watched from the gallery above. Its most famous resident refuses to comment on any of this, but surprisingly, Harper’s older sister Alice Lee invites Mills into their lives. Three years and a cover story (rated B-plus by Harper) later, Mills moves into Monroeville, two doors down from the Lees with a sketchy idea for a book.

The Lees introduce Mills to their close-knit circle of friends, to the history of a deeply racial South; they go out dining and fishing. They order British sitcoms, watch Janet Jackson’s nip-slip at Superbowl and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s superb turn as Truman Capote (once Harper’s neighbour who became Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird ). Alice is the wise sister, Harper, the wild one. Alice is “Atticus in skirts”, a formidable historian of the South and still practising law in Monroeville at 90. Harper might be as curious as Scout but is nervous about the odd public appearance, her clothes and the expectations of others.

Mills’ 2001 cover story in Chicago Tribune had the romance of a chance encounter with Lee, the first in nearly five decades. But from her 17-month stint in Monroeville, we learn more of Harper and Alice’s daily routines — cheese grit dinners, coffee mornings and feeding the town’s ducks — and little about the history of the South, of Alabama, of Monroeville, so accurately portrayed in To Kill a Mockingbird and still being documented by her sister. We learn how close they are to Gregory Peck and why she was Harper Lee on the book cover and not Nelle Harper (her real name). But Harper remains tight-lipped about the speculation around her sexuality, her drinking and temper, the fractious relationship with Capote, why she never wrote again or if the reception of her book had overwhelmed her. Mills gets an opportunity unlike any other to tell not just Harper’s tale but also Alice’s and she delivers an earnest, censored, dull account. And unsurprisingly, Harper Lee is rather outraged at its publication.