By Olivia McCrillis
BANGOR, ME- Author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Nelle Harper Lee, died in her sleep two weeks ago at the age of 89. Prior to her death, Lee hadn’t shown any signs of bad health. Many know her by her most famous book, To Kill a Mockingbird which was the first of only two books that Lee ever published.
Lee was born and raised in Alabama, and spent a big majority of her life there including both her initial and secondary education. After graduating from the University of Alabama, she moved to New York to work as a airline clerk. After working for about 8 years while writing, she finally published To Kill a Mockingbird and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. She received many different awards for To Kill a Mockingbird in addition to the Pulitzer Prize. Lee was an extremely private person and managed to somewhat keep it that way as To Kill a Mockingbird skyrocketed into popularity.
Lee was good friends with author Truman Capote, and spent a good amount of time accompanying him as he wrote his book, In Cold Blood. Lee and Capote were very close, and as a result Lee’s character Dill, in To Kill a Mockingbird was loosely based off of Capote. Like many authors Lee picked up and put down many different stories that she began to write. Among those started but never finished stories was a story that was said to be a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird called The Long Goodbye. Eventually a screen play was made of her most popular book and she couldn’t have been more pleased by the result of the film.
There did in fact end up being a sequel to Mockingbird called Go Set a Watchman, but Watchman was intended to be an ending book to a Mockingbird Trilogy. Watchman raised a significant amount of controversy for a number of reasons. For one, Lee had previously sworn she wouldn’t publish another book which led to an investigation on whether or not Lee really wanted to publish this book. The result of the investigation suggested no foul play, but Lee’s long time friends didn’t believe it, and suggested she was far too old to make that judgement call. Although there was much controversy, the publication remained.
Previous Husson student, Jake Madore said about Lee’s most popular book, “I remember reading it in high school, and although I wasn’t much of a reader, the book stuck with me for quite sometime. She wrote an extremely educational novel that I hope remains in schools.” Many people can say the same as Madore, having had to read the novel for their school assignments. A vast majority of the population knows the name Harper Lee simply because of the assignments they received in school.
Lee was laid to rest during a private ceremony, as she had requested, on February 20th. The ceremony was held in Monroeville, Alabama, the town used as a basis for the fictional town of Maycomb in To Kill A Mockingbird.
BANGOR, ME- Author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Nelle Harper Lee, died in her sleep two weeks ago at the age of 89. Prior to her death, Lee hadn’t shown any signs of bad health. Many know her by her most famous book, To Kill a Mockingbird which was the first of only two books that Lee ever published.
Lee was born and raised in Alabama, and spent a big majority of her life there including both her initial and secondary education. After graduating from the University of Alabama, she moved to New York to work as a airline clerk. After working for about 8 years while writing, she finally published To Kill a Mockingbird and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. She received many different awards for To Kill a Mockingbird in addition to the Pulitzer Prize. Lee was an extremely private person and managed to somewhat keep it that way as To Kill a Mockingbird skyrocketed into popularity.
Lee was good friends with author Truman Capote, and spent a good amount of time accompanying him as he wrote his book, In Cold Blood. Lee and Capote were very close, and as a result Lee’s character Dill, in To Kill a Mockingbird was loosely based off of Capote. Like many authors Lee picked up and put down many different stories that she began to write. Among those started but never finished stories was a story that was said to be a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird called The Long Goodbye. Eventually a screen play was made of her most popular book and she couldn’t have been more pleased by the result of the film.
There did in fact end up being a sequel to Mockingbird called Go Set a Watchman, but Watchman was intended to be an ending book to a Mockingbird Trilogy. Watchman raised a significant amount of controversy for a number of reasons. For one, Lee had previously sworn she wouldn’t publish another book which led to an investigation on whether or not Lee really wanted to publish this book. The result of the investigation suggested no foul play, but Lee’s long time friends didn’t believe it, and suggested she was far too old to make that judgement call. Although there was much controversy, the publication remained.
Previous Husson student, Jake Madore said about Lee’s most popular book, “I remember reading it in high school, and although I wasn’t much of a reader, the book stuck with me for quite sometime. She wrote an extremely educational novel that I hope remains in schools.” Many people can say the same as Madore, having had to read the novel for their school assignments. A vast majority of the population knows the name Harper Lee simply because of the assignments they received in school.
Lee was laid to rest during a private ceremony, as she had requested, on February 20th. The ceremony was held in Monroeville, Alabama, the town used as a basis for the fictional town of Maycomb in To Kill A Mockingbird.