Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

As Cep notes in Chapter 23, Harper Lee is among those American writers whose reputations are based upon one very successful novel. To Kill a Mockingbird gained Lee critical acclaim and wealth, but it also brought negative forces into her life that nearly destroyed her. Cep’s book offers insight into the early influences on Lee as a writer, the role of gender in Lee’s career, and the limitations of Lee’s vision. The inclusion of these elements helps Cep paint a more realistic portrait of the life of a working writer and explain Lee’s inability to complete The Reverend.

In the beginning of Part 3 Cep carefully outlines the early influences that allowed Lee to become a writer. Lee’s family was relatively affluent, so the unconventionality that played a key role in her decision to become a writer could flourish. In addition, Lee had a fellow traveler—Truman Capote—with whom she engaged in play and storytelling, activities that fed the young writer’s imagination. Finally, her father owned a newspaper; the presence of the newspaper allowed Lee to gain some writing experience. Ultimately, Lee’s voice was shaped by the culture and language of the South and a journalistic commitment to telling the truth.

Lee’s development as a writer was also shaped by gender. Cep notes that as a young woman, Lee made choices that met her family’s expectations. For example, she went to college and almost completed law school instead of pursuing opportunities to write professionally. Cep emphasizes the impact these conventional choices had on Lee by contrasting the relatively flat trajectory of Lee’s early career with that of Truman Capote, who gained experience and a valuable network because he started his career immediately after high school.

Leaving law school was a pivotal moment because Lee at last shrugged off convention and got down to the business of writing. Throughout the rest of her career, Lee was a single woman, which freed her from the responsibilities of caring for children, domestic work, or a husband. As she aged, however, Lee’s ability to work was impeded as she returned home to care for her aging father. Dealing with the deaths of family members likely played a role in her ongoing struggle with depression. All in all, Lee’s decision to lead an unconventional life in terms of gender expectations helped her gain the freedom she needed to be a writer.

Lee’s own vision of the writing life was that it was a solitary life that allowed the writer to engage in self-expression. She also associated the creative life with suffering. Lee’s writing process and life did not always align completely with her beliefs, however. Lee certainly was a solitary creature, but the process of creating To Kill a Mockingbird was a collaborative one that involved a generous gift of money from friends so Lee could focus on writing. Lee benefitted from frequent feedback and guidance on rewrites from professionals like Maurice Crain and Tay Hohoff. Their feedback allowed Lee to write work that would appeal to readers. These resources allowed Lee to turn her draft of To Kill a Mockingbird and short stories into a classic of American literature, while the absence of such support led to failures like The Reverend and Go Set a Watchman. When Lee’s suffering—her depression and her drinking—reached a pinnacle, she ceased writing.

Cep answers the question of why Lee ceased writing by undercutting myths about writing and writers. The popular representation of Lee is that she was a champion of racial equality, and this reputation is largely built on To Kill a Mockingbird. Cep systematically demythologizes this version of Lee. Lee’s vision of the function of writing and the writer was that it was the writer’s job to use their work to tell a broader story about human experiences, even when using particularities of a place like the South.

According to Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird “has a universal theme” and is “not a racial novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization—not necessarily Southern civilization” (201). In other words, in To Kill a Mockingbird Lee uses her very Southern story to tell a big story about the American desire for fairness, even when realizing that desire comes with risks and disapproval from peers. Atticus Finch, the hero of the novel, is also taken by many to represent the ability of the good intentions and character of moderate whites to overcome challenges to America’s vision of itself as the land of the free.

Despite the reception of the novel as one about civil rights, Lee did not see Atticus or the South through such rosy lenses, as shown by what she did with his character in Go Set a Watchman, in which Atticus is not a brave, white lawyer defending a black man. Instead, he is a member of the “White Citizen’s Council [an anti-civil rights, white supremacist organization] and oppos[es] the work of the NAACP” (178). Lee was also mostly quiet on the issue of civil rights. Her choices in how she used her platform imply that she did not see political activism as a part of the writer’s role. One of the sources of her anxiety about writing was fear about what would happen if her work did not coincide with the myth of Harper Lee as a civil rights crusader.

Lee’s inability to complete The Reverend also shows some of the shortcomings of her vision of universal themes and experiences as the bedrock of good writing. Cep notes that Lee would have needed much greater insight into black culture and the lives of her subjects to pull off writing the book. Lee “could have learned about Willie Maxwell’s South only through patient research and ongoing conversation” (225) with the black members of Willie’s community. Like most of her contemporaries, Lee chose to stay in her comfort zone with other white Southerners like Tom Radney.

Cep’s ultimate explanation for why Lee never finished The Reverend is that Lee was a victim of her own success and the writing life as she envisioned it could not sustain her.