Page 29 - ARUBA TODAY

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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 11 July 2017
Review: A revealing look at a beloved, mysterious writer

By WILL LESTER friendship and to the value tion for “To Kill a Mock-
Associated Press of patient cultivation of ingbird” — caught her
Nelle Harper Lee wrote a friendships, loyalty and the attention. After their first
novel published in the early value of skilled letter writ- exchange of letters, Flynt
1960s. Her next novel was ing. She wrote to Wayne was out of touch with her
published more than 50 that “you are surely one of for a dozen years. He let
years later. She had no use the era’s foremost practi- her know after he renewed
for email, Facebook and tioners of a moribund art,” their communications that
Twitter (which she consid- saying his letters “should be one of his granddaughters
ered as ways of invading kept forever.” was named Harper in her
someone’s privacy) and But that friendship was slow honor — and that delight-
only used a cellphone to in developing. ed the author. Their friend-
call people because she When he first encountered ship grew as they began
didn’t understand how to her at a book event and corresponding regularly
use it for anything else. asked her to sign a copy of and found many com-
Given her disdain for mod- her Pulitzer-winning book, mon interests, especially
ern communications and Lee coolly replied, “I only Alabama history and litera-
her slow, deliberate pace, sign for children.” ture. Lee adopted Flynt’s
it shouldn’t be surprising Flynt writes “that was our family as her own.
that the author of “To Kill first, not very promising, ex- Some interesting highlights
a Mockingbird” built her change.” from the book:
friendship with Alabama In later years, Flynt got to —Flynt maintains she was
historian Wayne Flynt over know Lee’s sisters and be- very aware of the planned
a period of years and main- gan to become more ac- publication of “Go Set a
tained it with an exchange quainted with Lee, who Watchman” and was en-
of long, detailed letters. went by her first name of thusiastic about it. Some
They sometimes commis- Nelle. Gradually, Flynt and critics had questioned
erated over the declining his wife, Dartie, developed whether Lee, already in
popularity of letter writing a friendship with the author frail health, had given her
due to the advent of email. after a newspaper column This cover image released by Harper shows “Mockingbird informed consent for the
Flynt’s “Mockingbird Songs” he wrote about the Lee Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee,” by Wayne Flynt. publication of her second
is a testament to their family — and his admira- Associated Press book.q