Part 5 (1/2)

”Because one of her characters used the same expression that my aunt used.” That was typical. People wanted to be in the book.

But wherever people read it, we learned that wherever they were, they placed the book setting where they lived. Early on, she got a letter from a young woman in Chicago who was a doctor, and she said, ”I'm interested to know when you spent so much time in Greensborough.” Now Greensborough is not too far from Tuscaloosa, and the only time Nelle Harper had ever been to Greensborough was when she pa.s.sed through to go to school.

In New York, Nelle could move around without being recognized. Her att.i.tude was, the kind of recognition that was coming out was the kind that was placed on entertainers who wanted wanted to be recognized-who promoted it for their business reasons. She did not think that a writer needed to be recognized in person, and it bothered her when she got too familiar. to be recognized-who promoted it for their business reasons. She did not think that a writer needed to be recognized in person, and it bothered her when she got too familiar.

When she was in New York, right after the publication, she granted some interviews. But as time went on, she said that reporters began to take too many liberties with what she said. And what they would print would be apparently what they wanted rather than what she said. So she just wanted out. And she started that and did not break her rule. She felt like she'd given enough.

You know, when wrong things get in print, they circulate forever. No way to retract them successfully.

She didn't put herself under the burden of writing like she did when she was doing Mockingbird Mockingbird. But she continued to write something. I think she was just working on maybe short things with an idea of incorporating them into something. She didn't talk too much about it. She says you couldn't top what she had done. She told one of our cousins who asked her: ”I haven't anywhere to go but down.”

We are not very much alike, except we are both old. We both love to read. Nelle Harper loves British literature; I've stuck more with American. More biography and history. It is so intriguing in biography to put things together.

James McBride James McBride was born in New York in 1957. He is the author of a memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1996), and two novels, (1996), and two novels, Miracle at St. Anna Miracle at St. Anna (2003) and (2003) and Song Yet Sung Song Yet Sung (2008). He is the screenwriter of (2008). He is the screenwriter of Miracle at St. Anna, Miracle at St. Anna, a film directed by Spike Lee. McBride is a composer, plays the tenor saxophone, and performs in jazz clubs. a film directed by Spike Lee. McBride is a composer, plays the tenor saxophone, and performs in jazz clubs.

I first read first read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I read a tattered copy in my house, in New York, in Jamaica, Queens. It was just beat-up, it had no cover. The page that says what edition it was, it was all ripped. It was dog-eared and it was yellowed and in my house. When I say dog-eared, that meant a dog might have had a go at it. My brothers and sisters and I read books all the time; we weren't allowed to watch that much television anyway. I thought it was an extraordinary book. I related to a lot of the characters, and it was the first time I read a book by a white writer who really discussed the issues of racism in any way that was complicated and sophisticated. Although I wasn't sophisticated enough to understand all of the issues that were discussed, the characters were so strong and the story was so strong that I related to the characters and to the story. It was a great book. It was a book I've read many times since that tattered edition that I found in my house. when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I read a tattered copy in my house, in New York, in Jamaica, Queens. It was just beat-up, it had no cover. The page that says what edition it was, it was all ripped. It was dog-eared and it was yellowed and in my house. When I say dog-eared, that meant a dog might have had a go at it. My brothers and sisters and I read books all the time; we weren't allowed to watch that much television anyway. I thought it was an extraordinary book. I related to a lot of the characters, and it was the first time I read a book by a white writer who really discussed the issues of racism in any way that was complicated and sophisticated. Although I wasn't sophisticated enough to understand all of the issues that were discussed, the characters were so strong and the story was so strong that I related to the characters and to the story. It was a great book. It was a book I've read many times since that tattered edition that I found in my house.

I read a lot of it in one sitting. In my house there was no peace. I grew up with eleven brothers and sisters. A lot of the reading that I did, I did in the closet or in a corner somewhere, or late at night when everyone else was asleep. It wasn't a school a.s.signment. It was just a book that I found on my brother David's bookshelf. He had all these odd books there that would make their way around. In my house, if you had a book, you had to hold on to it, because you could get to page 175 and then it would vanish, and you wouldn't get it back, ever. So I held on to it tight until I was done.

Honesty and truth last. My initial response was more or less the same as how I read it now professionally. The writer was very forthright and spoke with great clarity about issues that I think we have a hard time discussing even today. Later, when I penned my own book, the whole business of a child looking at racism and socioeconomic cla.s.sism from the prism of that child's innocence is something that I adapted for The Color of Water The Color of Water. That child's innocence is important in terms of allowing us to see the world from behind the child's eyeb.a.l.l.s. One nice thing for me is that often people compare The Color of Water The Color of Water to to To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. That's great. That to me is the highest compliment.

The character description and construction in To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is really the ceiling against which great character writing will forever b.u.mp, in a lot of ways. The characters are so strong and definitive, yet they have a great deal of ambiguity, and they have a great deal of innocence and then soiled innocence. They have a great deal of obvious depth and they are swept by the events of their time. Which brings to mind one thing that I've always found odd about the description of Harper Lee by other writers. They describe her as a very brave writer because she wrote about these subjects. I think she's a brilliant writer. I think Martin Luther King was brave; Malcolm X was brave; James Baldwin, who was gay and black in America and who had to move to France was brave. I think that by calling Harper Lee brave you kind of absolve yourself of your own racism. What writers are standing up now at this time when we've attacked Iraq, killed thousands and thousands of people, not to mention thousands of our own? I don't recall any great sweep of fiction writers other than maybe E. L Doctorow and Paul Auster, a couple of others, who, when it counted, stood up and said, is really the ceiling against which great character writing will forever b.u.mp, in a lot of ways. The characters are so strong and definitive, yet they have a great deal of ambiguity, and they have a great deal of innocence and then soiled innocence. They have a great deal of obvious depth and they are swept by the events of their time. Which brings to mind one thing that I've always found odd about the description of Harper Lee by other writers. They describe her as a very brave writer because she wrote about these subjects. I think she's a brilliant writer. I think Martin Luther King was brave; Malcolm X was brave; James Baldwin, who was gay and black in America and who had to move to France was brave. I think that by calling Harper Lee brave you kind of absolve yourself of your own racism. What writers are standing up now at this time when we've attacked Iraq, killed thousands and thousands of people, not to mention thousands of our own? I don't recall any great sweep of fiction writers other than maybe E. L Doctorow and Paul Auster, a couple of others, who, when it counted, stood up and said, I'm a writer, this is who I represent, this is what I feel, this is what's right. I'm a writer, this is who I represent, this is what I feel, this is what's right. So, by calling her brave, we kind of absolve ourselves of our own responsibility. She certainly set the standard in terms of how some of these issues need to be discussed, but in many ways I feel the bar's been lowered, the moral bar's been lowered. And that is really distressing. We need a thousand Atticus Finches. So, by calling her brave, we kind of absolve ourselves of our own responsibility. She certainly set the standard in terms of how some of these issues need to be discussed, but in many ways I feel the bar's been lowered, the moral bar's been lowered. And that is really distressing. We need a thousand Atticus Finches.

As an adult, it occurs to me that the black characters in the book, heroic as they are, they don't survive. The societal violence that takes place to Tom Robinson affects his family for generations, at least fictionally. In real life, my wife's great-grandfather was shot while he was standing in line to get feed, because a white guy just told him to move and he wouldn't move. That murder just goes on and on; it's told to generations of people in my wife's family. And similarly in Harper Lee's book, that part of the story was something that for me has never been quite resolved in the manner that I would like to have seen it resolve. That wasn't her purpose, to tell Tom Robinson's story, but that's partially my purpose as a writer.

I think the challenge that she laid out for us, the writers who follow in her wake, is to make sure that the various dimensions of these stories are told properly, and that we stand up in our own time to talk about issues that count now. It's easy to poke fun and say, ”I would have done this,” or ”What a brave women she was,” and so on and so forth, but when it counted, Harper Lee did what was necessary. And how many of us now are doing what's necessary in terms of standing up for the good and for the just?

She wrote about what she knew, but that doesn't absolve her of the responsibility of handling the character Tom better. Look, I wish I'd written the book, so let that be said. I'm not criticizing her work. She's a great writer. She's an American treasure, there's no question about it. But just like anything else, when the imprint of racism lays its hand on you, you have to be conscious as to how that affects you and your work. I think she did the best she could, given how she was raised. That still doesn't absolve the book or this country of the whole business of racism.

I love Calpurnia as a character, but what's her daughter's name? I think she was a wonderful character, but you always live in that tight s.p.a.ce when you're black. Harper Lee's approach gave Calpurnia some dimension. Calpurnia had a deep understanding of these issues, although she was restricted in terms of what she could do about a lot of these things.

I met Kurt Vonnegut before he died, and I was asking him, because his black characters were like Harper Lee's in the sense that they were really magnetic and very powerfully written and multidimensional, at least to a degree. And I said, ”How do you write with such authority about black people?” And he said, ”Well, my parents weren't always around, and so I was raised by a black woman who was very near and dear to me.” So he took that into his work. I don't know that Harper Lee had the same experience, but her work reflects a familiarity with black folks that's more than you'd find here in New York or in Philadelphia. Our Southern brothers have had that experience of growing up together, and while there's some distance between them, there's also a lot of common ground.

Who are the real separate ones in our society, those who claim to ”know your pain” or those who have been your fellow citizens, for whom you have changed a flat tire, who've changed your flat tires? In that regard, I appreciate what Harper Lee has done. I appreciate what she's done in every respect. When my daughter was in ninth grade honors English, she had to read Margaret Mitch.e.l.l's book Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind. How do you explain to a thirteen-year-old girl a book that depicts blacks as rapists and white-women chasers and savage people? How to explain that to a ninth grader? And what are you saying to them when that book is your honors English reading for the summer? On the other hand, when she read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, it's a book that she really liked. She could relate to it, as tragic as it is, and as difficult as it was for her to read.

Margaret Mitch.e.l.l is not the writer that Harper Lee is. Harper Lee writes with the greatest clarity and a superb amount of detail, superb amount of plot, character, content, all the kind of stuff that you need to push a book forward.

People are going to be reading Harper Lee as long as people draw oxygen in this country, and they should. To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird [is] a great book now, it was a great book yesterday, and it will be a great book tomorrow. Whoever writes whatever in the [is] a great book now, it was a great book yesterday, and it will be a great book tomorrow. Whoever writes whatever in the New Yorker New Yorker magazine or whatever, it'll be tomorrow's fish wrap. It is a great book. magazine or whatever, it'll be tomorrow's fish wrap. It is a great book.

If sentimentality can't be literature, my response to that is like, dippity do dah, dippity ay dippity do dah, dippity ay. Send a copy of Dr. Seuss's The Sneeches The Sneeches. The sneeches, after awhile they don't know who's the sneech, their ident.i.ties are all spinning around in a circle. To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is not overly sentimental. It's just a clear vision of what America was at that particular time, when people were filled with hope, ambiguity, love, compa.s.sion, anger, rage, everything. is not overly sentimental. It's just a clear vision of what America was at that particular time, when people were filled with hope, ambiguity, love, compa.s.sion, anger, rage, everything.

I think it's not fair to lob darts and grenades at a work like this that was written with the hope that people would see what the possibilities are in this country. It's unfair at a time when you can walk into any major bookstore and 95 percent of what you see is just really wasted trees. I just can't imagine that someone would think that To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird isn't anything but a great American work. Really. isn't anything but a great American work. Really.

She didn't need a mother in that book. It would have probably soiled the book somewhat. And that's a complicated character to deal with in the South, particularly at that time: White female characters-they were restricted in many ways.

It is the metamorphosis of this young girl, evolving from a child to a girl to an almost woman as a result of her experiences without a mother-though she had neighbors who cared, and she had Calpurnia, as well. Yeah, that's a difficult one, though, because Calpurnia would be the one who people would target and say, ”Here we go, you know, it's the stereotypical black mammy. I mean, how many of these do we need?” But first of all, it's rooted in reality, and secondly, it worked.

When the writer gets to the mainland, n.o.body asks how they got there. No one cares how William Faulkner wrote; they just know that he wrote. So who cares if you got there on the t.i.tanic t.i.tanic, or you paddled with a boat, or you jumped from lily pad to lily pad? You got to the mainland, and that's what counts.

If you only have one solo to play, then play the one solo. Why come back again and dance again? Why come back and hit the stage again? You've already branded the stage to ashes. You've killed it!

One time John Coltrane and Miles Davis were playing in one of the clubs in New York City, and John Coltrane was taking the solo, and he just kept soloing and soloing. Miles finally walked off the stage. And then Miles is meandering, waiting for Coltrane to finish; he smokes a cigarette, and Coltrane's still playing. Finally, Coltrane is finished, and Miles comes back on-stage, and they finish the song, and then he turns to Coltrane and says, ”Why are you playing so long?” And Coltrane says, ”I don't know, Miles. I just can't seem to stop once I get started.” And Miles says, ”Why don't you try taking the horn out of your mouth?” And so, maybe this is Harper Lee just taking the horn out of her mouth.

There's another Coltrane story that's more relevant. Coltrane, towards the end of his life, was touring Europe. And he was soloing. And during the middle of a solo, he put his horn down and started beating his chest and singing and shouting. And so after they played, the drummer-I think his name was Ras.h.i.+d Ali-he went up to Coltrane, he said, ”John, what's the matter? What's wrong with you, why'd you do that?” And Coltrane said, ”There was nothing else to play on the horn.” Maybe for Harper Lee there was nothing else to play. She sang the song, she played the solo, and she walked off the stage. And we're all the better for it. We're very grateful to her for the amount of love that she's given us.

If you're going to say something, let it be that. I wish I could do that. If I could afford to do it, if I weren't compelled to write, I would say The Color of Water The Color of Water would be where I stop. It's easy for one to leave behind what you've already done. You've planted the garden, the tomatoes have grown, and you eat them, and they come back again next year if you're lucky. There's nothing as terrible as the comedian who tells the same joke twice. Tell the joke, get off the stage, and move on. She told the story that we needed to hear. Unfortunately, it's as relevant now as it was decades ago when she first penned the book. would be where I stop. It's easy for one to leave behind what you've already done. You've planted the garden, the tomatoes have grown, and you eat them, and they come back again next year if you're lucky. There's nothing as terrible as the comedian who tells the same joke twice. Tell the joke, get off the stage, and move on. She told the story that we needed to hear. Unfortunately, it's as relevant now as it was decades ago when she first penned the book.

And interestingly enough, the book still has the kind of lean muscle that is missing from so much of the fiction that we read now. A lot of it had to be true. You can't make that kind of stuff up. If you made it up, someone would say it's not believable. So that's what separates her book from that of many other great Southern writers.

It is a difficult business, to write, and it is difficult business to really throw your heart on the page and dissect what is real and present it to people. It's kind of like ripping half your arteries out. So if she spends the rest of her life, whatever's left of it, just repairing from that one great shout, then amen. Amen to that.

The movie doesn't have the power of the book. It's a wonderful movie. Gregory Peck is a wonderful actor. I even met Brock Peters later in life. But the movie just doesn't have the resonance and the depth of the book. That is one reason why The Color of Water The Color of Water hasn't been made into a film yet. Because every time I see hasn't been made into a film yet. Because every time I see To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird as a film, I say to myself, as a film, I say to myself, This is nothing; this has not one fifth of the resonance and depth of the book. This is nothing; this has not one fifth of the resonance and depth of the book. And so And so The Color of Water The Color of Water may never become a film, not while I'm living. Maybe my kids might want to option it out, but for me, I doubt if it'll ever be made into a movie. And that's part of the reason, because I saw what was done with may never become a film, not while I'm living. Maybe my kids might want to option it out, but for me, I doubt if it'll ever be made into a movie. And that's part of the reason, because I saw what was done with To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. And that was a pretty credible job by a great cast.

The problem [is] when you start talking about the characters like Calpurnia, who basically vanishes during the movie, and even Brock Peters's depiction of Tom, which was really well done. You know, Atticus Finch comes off as a liberal who is trying to do that right thing. I've had my fill of liberals who are trying to do the right thing.

Atticus Finch was a citizen in a town who saw wrong and moved to right it, despite what his neighbors thought. It was beyond him trying to do the right thing. He knew G.o.d was watching, and he was trying to get to heaven. Gregory Peck, who really was a civil rights advocate, did a wonderful job with what was handed to him, with the script that he had. But I don't think that you can deal with the complexities of the book in film. You just can't do it.

Boo Radley comes off as like a zombie, when in fact Boo Radley is anything but that. The whole business of Boo Radley in his house, by the way, is just brilliant stuff. Copied and emulated by writers everywhere, the haunted house on the block. It's a cla.s.sic childhood theme, but not for black people. Yeah, we had the spooky house on our block too. But we had the spooky cops who would stop us on the way to school when you had your flute and open up your case. ”What's in your flute case?” But in general, it is a cla.s.sic childhood theme. Unfortunately there's always a but but when it involves black folks. when it involves black folks.

Still, what other writer during that time was willing to take on this subject with the kind of honesty and integrity that she did. What other white writer? I can't think of anyone.

Diane McWhorter Diane McWhorter grew up in the fifties and sixties in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and Dream of Freedom Dream of Freedom (2004), a young-adult history of the civil rights movement. (2004), a young-adult history of the civil rights movement.

My first experience of To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird was actually the movie, which came out when I was in fifth grade and really too young to have read the novel. So the experience of reading the book was superimposed on the movie, which made it extra magical because it kind of reinterpreted what was by then a major part of my ident.i.ty. was actually the movie, which came out when I was in fifth grade and really too young to have read the novel. So the experience of reading the book was superimposed on the movie, which made it extra magical because it kind of reinterpreted what was by then a major part of my ident.i.ty.

The movie was probably the most vivid memory of my childhood, for the following reason. My fifth-grade cla.s.s at the Brooke Hill School for Girls, which was a lily-white private school in Birmingham, Alabama, had a big dinner party on the night of the local premiere. And the movie had opened about three months late in Birmingham in the spring of '63, reputedly because the content was so controversial that no theaters would show it. So the Birmingham Jaycees [Junior Chamber of Commerce] had a campaign to bring it to town, and it was this big deal. Our cla.s.s dinner party was at the home of Studie and Walker Johnson, who were the twin daughters of the family that owned the Coca-Cola bottling franchise in Birmingham, and whenever we went to their house, we got to drink as many six-and-a-half-ounce bottles of c.o.ke as we wanted. We had sort of fancy food; I recall there was sour cream in one of the dishes or something. And then seniors from our school drove us to the theater. The reason this was such a big party was that our cla.s.smate Mary Badham played Scout in the movie. So the first bit of cognitive dissonance I ran up against that evening was seeing Mary on the screen, because in the year between when she shot the movie and when she came to Brooke Hill in fifth grade, which was when I met her, she had hit p.u.b.erty. The little Scout who looked seven years old in the movie was this gawky preteen.

Mary came from a kind of an eccentric family. They lived in this Addams Familytype house. Her mother was British and had dyed auburn hair. Her father was much older; he had been a general, and they were from a fairly old Birmingham family-to the extent that any family in Birmingham is old, since the city was founded in 1871! But anyway, it was fabulous seeing Mary up there, because she was so cute. And she got to roll down the street in that tire.

Every Southern child has an episode of cognitive dissonance having to do with race, when the beliefs that you've held are suddenly called into question. For a lot of Southern kids, the cla.s.sic instance was when you got on the bus with your beloved ”maid,” as they were called, and then the bus driver reprimanded her or made her go to the back of the bus. For me, it was seeing To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. I remember watching it, first a.s.suming that Atticus was going to get Tom Robinson off, not only because Tom Robinson was innocent but because Atticus was played by Gregory Peck, and of course he was going to win. Then, as it dawned on me that it wasn't going to happen, I started getting upset about that. Then I started getting really upset about being upset, because by rooting for a black man you were kind of betraying every principle that you had been raised to believe in. And I remember thinking, What would my father do if he saw me fighting back these tears when Tom Robinson gets shot? What would my father do if he saw me fighting back these tears when Tom Robinson gets shot? It was a really disturbing experience. I'm sure that other girls in the theater that night were going through the same thing, but we never spoke of it at all. It was a really disturbing experience. I'm sure that other girls in the theater that night were going through the same thing, but we never spoke of it at all.

We became obsessed with Scout. We started imitating Mary Badham and using her Scout expressions like ”Cecil Jacobs is a big wet hen!” and ”What the Sam Hill are you doing?” I remember asking my mother after seeing the movie, ”What is Sam Hill?” There were all sorts of words I didn't understand, like entailments entailments and and chiffarobe chiffarobe. The one thing a lot of us memorized was the ”Hey, Mr. Cunningham” speech, when Scout turns away the lynch mob in front of the jail. I look back on that as the little secret rite of pa.s.sage we Brooke Hill girls shared, that we could cross over to the other side by identifying with turning away the lynch mob instead of being part of it, which was closer to where we were metaphorically in that time and place.