Harper Lee trivia

Marja Mills

In the early years of the 21st century, when Marja Mills built a friendship with the elusive author Harper Lee, as told in The Mockingbird Next Door, the best way to communicate with her or her sister Alice was by fax. That's because Nelle, as Lee was known to her friends, was then in her late 70s and Alice was in her early 90s. Both were too deaf to hear their telephone or a knock on their door. And they were reluctant to answer a phone or a knock anyway because too many people were trying to contact the famous author, who valued her privacy. So Mills, when she moved into the house next door, needed a fax machine.

This is just one of the many fascinating bits of Harper Lee trivia to be found in this book. Here are a few others:

• Both of the Lee sisters were Anglophiles, although Alice had never been to England. They avidly read books and poetry by British writers and subscribed to such British periodicals as the Spectator, the Weekly Telegraph and the Times Literary Supplement.

• Although a Methodist, Harper Lee attended virtually every church in the Monroeville, Ala., area and had friendships with many of their pastors. She encouraged Mills to attend all these churches as well, perhaps to better understand the writer's ecumenical beliefs.

• Harper Lee enjoyed football, especially when the Alabama Crimson Tide were playing. Mills describes Nelle's reaction to Janet Jackson's famous "wardrobe malfunction" during a Super Bowl halftime.

• The author lived very simply, although To Kill a Mockingbird remained a bestseller for decades and royalties were substantial. She donated large sums of money, Mills says, and there are many college graduates who will never know that their scholarships were paid for by Harper Lee.

• Nelle referred to Mills as "a class-act journalist," meaning that the Chicago Tribune reporter checked her facts and didn't color those facts to make a better story. The author was very critical of what has been called the New Journalism, or what Donald Trump calls fake news, journalism with an agenda. Yet Mills points out that Harper Lee, by assisting Truman Capote research In Cold Blood, called a nonfiction novel, the author was herself one of the founders of New Journalism. Yet Lee defended Capote's book.

• She did not defend Capote, however, especially in his latter years when his talent was consumed by alcohol, drugs, pride and jealousy. At one point she tells Mills, "Truman was a psychopath, honey."