Furious Hours: The Book Harper Lee Didn't Write

Since I've never denied that Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is on the short list of my favorite books--to read and re-read as well as to teach--I was eager to pick up Casey Cep's book Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.

The books begins not with Lee but with the story of Willie Maxwell, who returned to South Alabama after military service first to do work in a local plant and then to become the Rev. Willie Maxwell. The book details a series of mysterious deaths--two wives, a neighbor (and the late husband of wife number two), a nephew, and a step daughter. In each case, he was never convicted, thanks primarily to his lawyer Tom Radney.

Cep shifts between main characters, describing Radney's political career, including an unsuccessful run for Alabama Lt. Governor. The author deftly weaves together her extensive research on the parties involved in the trial before turning her attention to Lee.

The ironic twist comes when Maxwell is killed at the funeral of his step-daughter (and yes, Maxwell was the obvious suspect). Who defends the shooter Robert Burns? Maxwell's lawyer Radney. The trial held in Alexander City draws lots of attention, but most significantly that of Harper Lee. The author, already well-known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, sat through the trial and gathered extensive research of her own, intending to overcome her writer's block and turn it into her second book.

Cep takes the reader through Nell Harper Lee's history before, during, and after there writing of Mockingbird. This including her lifelong connection to Truman Capote first as childhood friends and later as collaborators as Lee assisted Capote in his research for In Cold Blood. She paints a complex and candid picture of the author's life and even her struggle with alcohol.

Eventually, Cep manages to do what Lee could not: find a way to tell this complicated story that evoked as much rumor and innuendo as fact.

Furious Hours: The Book Harper Lee Didn't Write

I have found one or two people I consider friends who don't like the Beatles and about the same number who don't love To Kill a Mockingbird. I love them anyway, but I don't exactly understand. I got my first word of Harper Lee's death last week from a former student's text. Over the next day or two, I noticed how many other messages I heard from friends, former students, colleagues, and kin, all wanting to react to the news.

I couldn't help wondering if everyone's Facebook carried the same quantity of information on Lee's death or did the algorithms load other people's feed with sports, politics, or the Kardashians?

I read the book first in high school, maybe junior high.  I taught it for many years of my high school teaching career--before the ninth grade teachers claimed it as their own.  I remember hearing Kylene Beers telling that her daughter was assigned the book three years in a row, as a result of school changes, loving it each time.  The third year, she told her mom, "I think the version we're reading this year is better."

"No," Kylene said she told her. "The book is the same. You're a better version of yourself now."

One of the charms of this book is that it stands up to multiple reading. Even as it grows more familiar, it moves readers. Scout makes me laugh sometimes. She makes me cry. I love Atticus and respect him, while recognizing that he's not a perfect father. His own integrity puts his children in danger.

When the stage version of the novel was performed at the Zodiac Theatre in Florence, Alabama, my hometown, I remember hearing that Miss Lee--Nelle to her family and friends--had written part of the book in our town, where her college roommate lived.  Some said she might attend the play, but would keep a low profile.

Part of her charm was her avoidance of the spotlight. Had she been born later, I still doubt she would have tweeted. The stories about her, as a result, developed legendary status.

I never got to meet her. I covet a signed copy of the book, but I'm content with my paperback copy held together by rubber bands. From what I'm hearing from friends over the last several days, others still hold on to their own school copies.  I wonder how many other books from my required reading lists gain a permanent place on bookshelves instead of being traded to the used bookstore for soft drink money.

I might add, too, that while my mantra "The movie was better" holds true, the film of To Kill a Mockingbird is rightfully a classic itself, perfectly cast, perfectly executed. The pieces I would add to the collection are the documentary Hey Boo! and the companion volume Scout, Atticus, and Boo, both the result of a project by Mary McDonah Murphy.  I have my own collection. In my literature teaching files, I probably have as much material on Lee and her novel than any other work. I have a videotape made from a reel-to-reel tape from the thirties, made my a gentleman who moved to Monroeville from New Jersey, showing the downtown that served as the model for Maycomb. I have more activities to use with the novel in the classroom than time could every allow. All this for a book I haven't taught in more than 20 years.

But I've read it over and over, something I rarely do with so many books still unread. All that's left to do is to take a pilgrimage to Maycomb, to see the play performed in the former courthouse. I'll keep an ear perked for the footfalls of ghosts of Scout and Jem, Calpurnia, Dill. Maybe even Boo Radley will come out.