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The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee

There is quite a dust up at the publication of this new biography of Harper Lee. The author Marja Mills claims to have had a warm friendship with Harper and her sister, Alice. She did live next door to them for 18 months while researching the book. Who to believe?

April 27, 2011

The law firm Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter in Monroeville, Ala., issued the statement. Signed by Harper Lee, it said:

“Contrary to recent news reports, I have not willingly participated in any book written or to be written by Marja Mills. Neither have I authorized such a book. Any claims otherwise are false.”

And on July 14, 2014

But in a letter released Monday, Lee insists she never authorized Mills to reveal anything about her private life. “Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood,” Lee wrote.

But then:
Mills reacted swiftly, issuing a statement of her own in which she asserts that the sisters “gave me their blessing.” She included a 2011 statement by Lee’s good friend, Tom Butts, who said that the Lee sisters “were pleased that Miss Mills was going to preserve . . . stories [of their lives] in a book. . . . All in all the friendship was an open and happy experience for all concerned.”