Becoming Harper Lee's friend

For decades following the overwhelming success of To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee deliberately kept her distance from reporters, would-be biographers and even fans she suspected of trying to take advantage of her. So why did she suddenly welcome Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills into her life, even to the point of encouraging her to move into the vacant house next to the one she shared with her sister in Monroeville, Ala.? The answers come in The Mockingbird Next Door (2014), the book Mills wrote about her surprising friendship with the reclusive, yet far from retiring, author.

1. Nelle (like her other friends, Mills refers to the late author by her real first name) liked the fact that at that time (2001) Chicago was encouraging its citizens to read and talk about her novel. These kinds of programs, now common in many communities, was a relatively new idea back then, and however much Nelle wanted to avoid public exposure, she enjoyed having her novel front and center.

2. Nelle was in her 70s then and she realized that her opportunities to get the facts straight for all those who would inevitably be writing about her life were running out. Charles Shields was already working on his unauthorized biography, and when it was published, she didn't like it.

3. Marja Mills first approached not her but her older sister Alice. Then in her early 90s, Alice was still practicing law in Monroeville. Nelle called her "Atticus in a skirt." Alice invited the reporter into her home, Nelle being away at the time, and answered a few questions. After Mills passed the Alice test, Nelle herself called the reporter at her motel and suggested getting together.

4. Mills herself was somewhat vulnerable. She was more introverted than the typical reporter, plus she suffered from lupus, a condition that can leave a person too tired to do anything for days at a time. It was lupus, in fact, that caused Mills to take a leave from the Tribune and move next door to the Lees.

5. The reporter didn't push for information as much as wait patiently for the author to reveal it. Gradually Nelle gave Mills access to her closest friends in Monroeville, and gradually Mills herself became a close friend. Every day she and Nelle would have coffee together. Every week they would go to the laundromat together.

The lively mind, tormented soul and generous heart that Nelle Harper Lee revealed to Marja Mills already makes her book a great source for all those who want to write about the writer. And perhaps now they will get their facts straight. For example, Truman Capote, her one-time friend and neighbor, did not help her write To Kill a Mockingbird, though she did help him write In Cold Blood.