The Mockingbird sang!

I read a big girl book! And it was non-fiction!! I know…shocking!!! All of my posts have been Young Adult with an occasional juvenile non-fiction thrown in from time to time. But this book was one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. Once I picked it up, I didn’t want to put it down. So what was this wonder, you may ask? The Mockingbird Next Door, Life with Harper Lee by Marja Mills.

I knew nothing about Harper Lee other than she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. A book which students across America have had as required reading for years. When I started reading I expected to get dry facts about an author and the book she wrote. I could not have been more wrong.

From the first page you are on a journey with Mills as she gets to know both Nelle (as she soon begins to call Harper Lee) and her older sister, Alice Finch Lee. Find out their opinions on a variety of things ranging from Harper’s collaboration with Truman Capote on In Cold Blood, to why she was such a private person, to speculation as to why there was never a second book. You meet the Lee sisters’ inner circle of friends and hear stories of the area they have always lived in. You see what Monroeville, Alabama looks like now verses what it looked like when Harper was growing up. You ride through the countryside and see the world through the Lee sisters’ eyes.

Marja Mills shared her health issues that required her to take a disability leave from the Chicago Tribune. That in turn prompted the Lee sisters to invite her to Monroeville to set the record straight about their lives and to get the Lee family history on tape or in writing before something happened to Alice, who was in her 80s at the time. They also took it upon themselves to educate her about the South as well as the world at large. They would send her to different churches to give her a taste of religion in the South. There were books they wanted her to read to expand her horizons. Plus, there were always cups of black coffee to be drunk always at the same booth of the local McDonald’s whenever the mood struck.

I was immersed in The Mockingbird Next Door once I started it. The world ceased to exist until I finished. I realize I am gushing a bit over this book, but I enjoyed this book immensely. I highly recommend you give it a read!