© 2017 Wayne Flynt
251 pages
When I read Poor but Proud
by Wayne Flynt some years ago, I never imagined I’d meet the author,
let alone help him carry in boxes of books for a book-signing. Such are
the perks of working in a small town library. On his last visit here, Flynt shared excerpts from Mockingbird Songs,
a collection of letters between he and Harper Lee, bound together by
commentary from Flynt about his and “Nelle’s” growing friendship.
They first met through the Flynt family’s friendship with Harper’s
sister Louise, but Flynt and Lee were such admirers of the others’ work
(and both coconspirators to keep letter-writing alive), that they
developed an epistolary friendship of their own that would grow into a
full one, complete with Flynt reading to a bed-stricken Lee whose
eyesight was much diminished. The letters can be both warm and snarky,
with most of the snark being levied against those who tried to
capitalize on Lee (the town of Monroeville and Charles Shields, an
unauthorized biographer, are particular targets). Flynt comments that
despite Lee's reputation as standoffish and intensely private, the
woman he knew was outstandingly warm and brilliantly funny. The two
were mutual friends of Kathryn Tucker Windham, the storyteller par
excellence of Alabama, and I enjoyed encountering stories about her, as well -- the best being her funeral instructions, in which she informed whatever minister hired to perform the service that people would want to tell stories afterward, so hurry things along.
I'll have to check this one out. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my all-time favorite books. I bought Go Set a Watchman because I needed to have it, though I will probably never read it.
ReplyDeleteThe controversy about that book is covered here, so it's probably of interest. According to Flynt, Lee had definitely worked on a book with that title, but he seems as concerned as everyone else that it was suddenly published right before she passed.
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