CCBC-Net Archives
[CCBC-Net] Harper Lee/Kerry Madden
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Kerry Madden <kiffnkerry>
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 18:29:46 -0700 (PDT)
Thank you so much, Dean, for your very kind words, and thank you, Katy, and Nancy, too. I have to say that I had a wonderful editor, Catherine Frank, who really made me go back again and again to get it right. In very early drafts, I struggled a lot, and the first half of the book read almost a like blob of Harper Lee's childhood. I even stuck the "Methodist Rules for Singing" into an early draft, because I found them funny, but obviously they did not belong.?
* * *
"Our First Day in Monroeville" On our first Monday in Monroeville, we met Miss Alice Lee, Harper Lee's older sister, and I blogged about it for the Penguin site at the following link:
"Go Ask
Alice" http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/miss-alice-lee-kerry-madden
* * *
After we met Miss Alice, we interviewed Hanna Brown, a girl, who played Scout for five years and is now playing Mayella at the Old Courthouse on the square for the annual production of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. She said, "I reckon I'll be Miss Maudie or Miss Stephanie one day."
Somehow Hanna and her mother, Susan, are kin to Truman Capote's family. I got a real sense of a Monroeville teenage girl talking to Hanna. She apologized to us because the town "only has a Wal-Mart and not a Super Wal-Mart." She also said something so funny regarding liquor in this dry county. There are signs around Monroeville that say, "Christians don't vote wet." Hanna said, "Well, it's the wettest dry county!"
I asked her what teenagers did for fun and jobs, and she said, "Skating rink, bowling alley, mud-riding,
jet-skiing. On Fridays, in the summer we go the Monroe County Fair. Kids babysit, work at the Mockingbird Grill and the
Red & White grocery store."
There was a real musical lilt to Hannah's voice, and she said, "Yes ma'am" to every sentence. Another man in town A.B. Blass described the accent this way: "The Yankees hit the consonants, but the southerners hit the vowels." That was Hanna.
She also said that the big football rivals are teams from Euriah, Frisco City, and Excel. Football is huge in Alabama, of course, and I understand that you have to be either for Auburn or Alabama. On this football note, I found an article where Bear Bryant and Harper Lee were being honored at the same banquet. The following excerpt did not make it into the book, but I found it fascinating to read this article from 1962 about a meeting between Bear Bryant and Nelle Harper Lee.
She chose to attend the ?Alabama Alumni Association?s first annual Capital Capstone Award? ceremony instead of the Cannes Film Festival to watch the screening of To Kill a Mockingbird. The Capital Capstone Award was for "the graduate whose distinguished contributions to the national scene during 1962 has reflected the best traditions of this university."
Here are some excerpts from the article:
??'BEAR TALKED about literature and I talked about football?I was a rabid football fan long before I was a writer,? Nelle told journalist Dave Brady at the gathering of famous Alabama alumni in 1963, including legendary head football coach, Bear Bryant.
?Everybody has always called me Nelle but the three names just wouldn't fit on the narrow book binding,? she explained.??Do you want to know something about Leroy Jordan, last year?s All American center for Alabama? He lives near me, in a town aptly named Excel. It has a population of 75. I live in a ?metropolis? called Monroeville. It has 3000 people.'
A visitor wanted to know about Bryant's literary remarks.
'Oh he talked about his adventure in the magazine field,' Miss Lee said, impishly referring to the $10.5 million worth of libel suits Bryant has going against the Saturday Evening Post.
Someone explained that Bryant is suing The Saturday Evening Post in one of three cases over a story he contends pictured him as condoning brutality by his players.
A wag quipped, "Brutal? Why, the Bear wouldn't kill a mockingbird.'"
??? Giving up a trip to the Cannes Film Festival to see her film screened with Hollywood?s finest and choosing instead to spend an evening at an Alabama Alumni event says everything about who Nelle Harper Lee was back in 1963 and who she remains to this day ? a down-to-earth woman with no need or desire to seek the limelight.
??? Brady said Nelle stole the show from Bear Bryant who usually held court at these Alabama Alumni gatherings. As for the award, Nelle said,
?This means more to me than anything ever given me.?
Thanks for letting me share some of these stories. I'm happy to answer any questions, and I look forward to hearing about other authors' primary research too.
All best, Kerry Madden www.kerrymadden.com
P.S.? My favorite rule of John Wesley?s Select Hymns from 1761 in regards to correctly singing hymns:
II.??? "Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all;
and if you have learned
to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can."
UP CLOSE: HARPER LEE
"My needs are simple: pen, paper, and privacy." Harper Lee, 1961 www.kerrymadden.com
--- On Tue, 5/19/09, Dean Schneider <schneiderd at ensworth.com> wrote: From: Dean Schneider
<schneiderd at ensworth.com> Subject: [CCBC-Net] Harper Lee/Kerry Madden To: "ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu" <ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu> Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 8:18 PM
What I especially appreciate about Kerry Madden's biography, beyond the solid research, is the engaging tone of the book. I really felt I was coming to know Harper Lee--a remarkable achievement on Madden's part, given that she never got to interview her, her sense of Harper Lee created from in-depth interviews, research, and visits to the Monroeville to get a real sense of the place. Being an English teacher, I enjoyed the portrait of Gladys Watson Burkett, Lee's high
school English teacher, who exhorted her students to write with "clarity, coherence, and cadence." It inspires me to be as tough with my students! I
like that this biography includes two of Harper Lee's college writings and, my favorite quote
in
the book, an excerpt from Lee's letter to O magazine in 2006: "In the letter, she wrote of the comfort of curling up in bed with a book as a child. 'Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I st
ill plod along with books.'" [182]
And, of course, for anyone who teaches To Kill a Mockingbird, as I do with my 8th graders, this biography gives lots of information on the inspiration for events, characters and scenes, and some insights into the movie. Madden does a masterful job of showing how details of Lee's life connect to the novel. It's also a biography that's a fine book in its own right,
not just an adjunct to To Kill a Mockingbird. It's the story of a person with the courage and stubbornness to go her own way, to become what she wanted
to be.
Next year, I'll be teaching the novel AND reading the biography with
my classes.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, Tennessee
_______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at lists.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://lists.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Wed 20 May 2009 08:29:46 PM CDT
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 18:29:46 -0700 (PDT)
Thank you so much, Dean, for your very kind words, and thank you, Katy, and Nancy, too. I have to say that I had a wonderful editor, Catherine Frank, who really made me go back again and again to get it right. In very early drafts, I struggled a lot, and the first half of the book read almost a like blob of Harper Lee's childhood. I even stuck the "Methodist Rules for Singing" into an early draft, because I found them funny, but obviously they did not belong.?
* * *
"Our First Day in Monroeville" On our first Monday in Monroeville, we met Miss Alice Lee, Harper Lee's older sister, and I blogged about it for the Penguin site at the following link:
"Go Ask
Alice" http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/miss-alice-lee-kerry-madden
* * *
After we met Miss Alice, we interviewed Hanna Brown, a girl, who played Scout for five years and is now playing Mayella at the Old Courthouse on the square for the annual production of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. She said, "I reckon I'll be Miss Maudie or Miss Stephanie one day."
Somehow Hanna and her mother, Susan, are kin to Truman Capote's family. I got a real sense of a Monroeville teenage girl talking to Hanna. She apologized to us because the town "only has a Wal-Mart and not a Super Wal-Mart." She also said something so funny regarding liquor in this dry county. There are signs around Monroeville that say, "Christians don't vote wet." Hanna said, "Well, it's the wettest dry county!"
I asked her what teenagers did for fun and jobs, and she said, "Skating rink, bowling alley, mud-riding,
jet-skiing. On Fridays, in the summer we go the Monroe County Fair. Kids babysit, work at the Mockingbird Grill and the
Red & White grocery store."
There was a real musical lilt to Hannah's voice, and she said, "Yes ma'am" to every sentence. Another man in town A.B. Blass described the accent this way: "The Yankees hit the consonants, but the southerners hit the vowels." That was Hanna.
She also said that the big football rivals are teams from Euriah, Frisco City, and Excel. Football is huge in Alabama, of course, and I understand that you have to be either for Auburn or Alabama. On this football note, I found an article where Bear Bryant and Harper Lee were being honored at the same banquet. The following excerpt did not make it into the book, but I found it fascinating to read this article from 1962 about a meeting between Bear Bryant and Nelle Harper Lee.
She chose to attend the ?Alabama Alumni Association?s first annual Capital Capstone Award? ceremony instead of the Cannes Film Festival to watch the screening of To Kill a Mockingbird. The Capital Capstone Award was for "the graduate whose distinguished contributions to the national scene during 1962 has reflected the best traditions of this university."
Here are some excerpts from the article:
??'BEAR TALKED about literature and I talked about football?I was a rabid football fan long before I was a writer,? Nelle told journalist Dave Brady at the gathering of famous Alabama alumni in 1963, including legendary head football coach, Bear Bryant.
?Everybody has always called me Nelle but the three names just wouldn't fit on the narrow book binding,? she explained.??Do you want to know something about Leroy Jordan, last year?s All American center for Alabama? He lives near me, in a town aptly named Excel. It has a population of 75. I live in a ?metropolis? called Monroeville. It has 3000 people.'
A visitor wanted to know about Bryant's literary remarks.
'Oh he talked about his adventure in the magazine field,' Miss Lee said, impishly referring to the $10.5 million worth of libel suits Bryant has going against the Saturday Evening Post.
Someone explained that Bryant is suing The Saturday Evening Post in one of three cases over a story he contends pictured him as condoning brutality by his players.
A wag quipped, "Brutal? Why, the Bear wouldn't kill a mockingbird.'"
??? Giving up a trip to the Cannes Film Festival to see her film screened with Hollywood?s finest and choosing instead to spend an evening at an Alabama Alumni event says everything about who Nelle Harper Lee was back in 1963 and who she remains to this day ? a down-to-earth woman with no need or desire to seek the limelight.
??? Brady said Nelle stole the show from Bear Bryant who usually held court at these Alabama Alumni gatherings. As for the award, Nelle said,
?This means more to me than anything ever given me.?
Thanks for letting me share some of these stories. I'm happy to answer any questions, and I look forward to hearing about other authors' primary research too.
All best, Kerry Madden www.kerrymadden.com
P.S.? My favorite rule of John Wesley?s Select Hymns from 1761 in regards to correctly singing hymns:
II.??? "Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all;
and if you have learned
to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can."
UP CLOSE: HARPER LEE
"My needs are simple: pen, paper, and privacy." Harper Lee, 1961 www.kerrymadden.com
--- On Tue, 5/19/09, Dean Schneider <schneiderd at ensworth.com> wrote: From: Dean Schneider
<schneiderd at ensworth.com> Subject: [CCBC-Net] Harper Lee/Kerry Madden To: "ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu" <ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu> Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 8:18 PM
What I especially appreciate about Kerry Madden's biography, beyond the solid research, is the engaging tone of the book. I really felt I was coming to know Harper Lee--a remarkable achievement on Madden's part, given that she never got to interview her, her sense of Harper Lee created from in-depth interviews, research, and visits to the Monroeville to get a real sense of the place. Being an English teacher, I enjoyed the portrait of Gladys Watson Burkett, Lee's high
school English teacher, who exhorted her students to write with "clarity, coherence, and cadence." It inspires me to be as tough with my students! I
like that this biography includes two of Harper Lee's college writings and, my favorite quote
in
the book, an excerpt from Lee's letter to O magazine in 2006: "In the letter, she wrote of the comfort of curling up in bed with a book as a child. 'Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I st
ill plod along with books.'" [182]
And, of course, for anyone who teaches To Kill a Mockingbird, as I do with my 8th graders, this biography gives lots of information on the inspiration for events, characters and scenes, and some insights into the movie. Madden does a masterful job of showing how details of Lee's life connect to the novel. It's also a biography that's a fine book in its own right,
not just an adjunct to To Kill a Mockingbird. It's the story of a person with the courage and stubbornness to go her own way, to become what she wanted
to be.
Next year, I'll be teaching the novel AND reading the biography with
my classes.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, Tennessee
_______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at lists.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://lists.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Wed 20 May 2009 08:29:46 PM CDT
