Harper Lee's First Novel that is now her Second

Harper Lee is coming out with a second novel but in fact it is her first that the publishers rejected. I had read about how Mockingbird  was written with heavy input from her publisher. This is during the time when editors actually worked closely with writers to produce novels. But Harper Lee had actually written a first novel  and the editor rejected it and suggested she write the book from Scouts viewpoint.

If you read To Kill A Mockingbird the first part is really a series of interrelated stories while the second part is a fully integrated  novel. That first part I will bet came from this original manuscript the publisher rejected. Writers do that. They cannibalize the good out of one manuscript for something else. This then is the book that is coming out in July.

A lot has been written about why she is publishing this. The better question is why didn't Harper Lee ever write another novel. That is a more interesting question. The old wisdom said if you knock one out of the park then why ever do it again? That sounds good but it doesn't pertain to writers. Writers are people who write regardless of their success. Unless they cant.

The story I read about the writing of To Kill A Mockingbird had her describing a very difficult process of forging this novel. There was a lot of back and forth with her editor. Maybe she didn't know what to do after Mockingbird. It happens. Then the next question of WHY. Why now? Why bring out an old manuscript originally rejected by the publisher? It is not money. I think I read she makes 1.6 million off of royalties every six months.

Maybe she got tired of being the one trick writer. Or maybe, she believed the book had merit. And that it should have been published. Maybe the age of sequels or prequels in this case made her think it was alright to publish her first effort. We will never know why she published it, but in about five months we will find out if that editor was right to reject that book.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Harper Lee's Second To Kill A Mockingbird

Way back when I was trying to get a blurb from Harper Lee for my second novel, Tobacco Sticks. There was a man named Roy who answered the phone. I have put the book on Ms. Lee's beside table but I cant guarantee she will read it, he said. This went on for months. I would call and Roy would say. Well Ms. Lee is working her way through the stack. She never got to Tobacco Sticks. But of course I know now what she was doing. Writing another novel.

Go Set A Watchman. That is the title of Harper Lees second novel due out in July that predates her first To Kill A Mockingbird. Apparently this one didn't work out and the publisher prodded her into writing Mockingbird. The novel has now surfaced and coming our way in July. Who could  not be excited when the world had decided Harper Lee would be the ultimate one hit wonder along with JD Salinger and Margaret Mitchell. One smash masterpiece and game over.

But of course the world is complicated. Michael Jordan doesn't retire when he should. We live in a world of sequels and for whatever reason Miss. Lee has decided to put this very old manuscript. We have all loved Mockingbird and yes this book will not measure up. How could it? And then of course there is the old just be happy to have another Harper Lee book. I am good with that but then there are those Hemingway manuscripts.

Several books have followed his death and none of them have even been close to the books he put out when he was alive. Writers know which books are good and which ones don't work. Light in Africa and Islands in the Stream are poor substitutes for A Farewell To Arms and  For Whom The Bell Tolls. But again the manuscripts are there so why not bring them out.

So I will read it. Along with the millions. My only question is... did Harper Lee ever get to the bottom of her stack and read Tobacco Sticks?  Come to think of it, I wonder if Roy was lying to me.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
Tobacco Sticks
The Pitcher
 

Harper Lee on Writing

Now, if you were to give advice to the talented youngster who wants to carve a career as a creative writer, what would that advice be?
Lee: Well, the first advice I would give is this: hope for the best and expect nothing. Then you won't be disappointed. You must come to terms with yourself about your writing. You must not write "for" something; you must not write with definite hopes of reward.

Young people today, especially the college kids, scare me to death. They say they are going to be writers. Their attitude is, "I'm going to write it, and because I write it, it's going to be great, it's going to be published and make me great."

Well, I've got news for them. (You must think I regard writing as something like the medieval priesthood—and sometimes I wish our government could see its way clear to support our writers on bread and water and shut them up in a monastery somewhere.) People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers.

Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. I don't believe this business of "No, I don't write for myself, I write for the public." That's nonsense. Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself. He writes not to communicate with other people, but to communicate more assuredly with himself. It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.

Of course, he gets his material from the world around him. He's on the inside looking out, yet at the same time he has to stand away from it and look inward.  I'm making no sense, I'm sure. But writing is the one form of art and endeavor that you cannot do for an audience. Painters paint, and their pictures go on the wall, musicians play, actors act for an audience, but I think writers write for themselves, and this attitude of "I'm going to write and be great just because I write" is where most young people fool themselves.

Another way they fool themselves is when they study to be writers. They are training themselves, in colleges, to be writers. Well, my dear young people, writing is something you'll neve learn in any university or at any school. It's something that is within you, and if it isn't there, nothing can put it there. But if you are really serious about writing, if you really feel you must write, I would suggest that you follow the advice the Reverend John Keble gave a friend who asked him how to get his faith back. "By holy living."

Further Reading of the interview...check out suggested titles at the end
Tobacco Sticks...Southern Courtroom Drama