Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

By the 1970s, Harper Lee (called “Nelle” by her contemporaries) had disappeared from public view. She lived frugally on the very large royalties from To Kill a Mockingbird, but she had published nothing of note after her famous first novel. In 1978, however, she was hiding out in Alexander City and about to start work on her next book—one about Willie Maxwell.

Cep provides an overview of the early lives of Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Lee spent her childhood in Monroeville, Alabama, mostly unsupervised; she filled her days with making up and later writing stories with her best friend Truman Capote. Lee learned to read early and was something of a misfit because of her intelligence and refusal to embrace traditional women’s norms. Lee initially followed her family’s wishing by going to college, but she dropped out of law school six weeks before graduation because she wanted to get down to the business of becoming a professional writer.

Truman Capote spent his early years living next door to the Lee family. Like Lee, he was a precocious misfit. His lisp, short stature, and gender presentation (he was gay and out later in his life) made him stand out.