Harper Lee Says She Did Not Endorse Neighbor's Book

According to its publisher, Marja Mills's new book about Harper Lee is a chronicle of her friendship with the reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird and her older sister, telling of coffees shared at McDonalds and trips to the laundromat in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, catfish suppers and feeding the ducks. But Lee, in a strongly-worded letter she released on Monday, says she would "leav[e] town whenever [Mills] headed this way", and "as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood".

Mills's The Mockingbird Next Door, which is published in the US this week, details how, in 2004, the Chicago Tribune journalist moved into the house next door to Harper Lee, who is known by her first name, Nelle, and her sister Alice. Mills lived there for 18 months, writes Penguin Press, "with the Lees' blessing". The publisher says that "Nelle shared her love of history, literature, and the Southern way of life with Mills, as well as her keen sense of how journalism should be practised", and "as the sisters decided to let Mills tell their story, Nelle helped make sure she was getting the story – and the South – right. Alice, the keeper of the Lee family history, shared the stories of their family."

Lee first made her objections to the book clear in 2011, when she issued a statement via the Monroeville law firm Barnett, Bugg, Lee and Carter where Alice works, saying that she had "not willingly participated in any book written or to be written by Marja Mills". "Neither have I authorised such a book. Any claims otherwise are false," wrote the Pulitzer prize-winning author at the time.

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