8 ms·

Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

270 points by InternetGiant 12y ago

ojbyrne 12y ago
I thought I was seeing an onion headline at first.
- mrkipling 12y ago
  ...why?
  - apetresc 12y ago
    Because it would suit their style, juxtaposing two contrasting things (classical literature and marketing-driven pop culture that has lots of sequels).
  - savanaly 12y ago
    I get it. To take the joke even farther, you might imagine a headline from The Onion along the lines of "God working on sequel to The Bible". Not funny when I state it all dryly of course, but hopefully you can see the joke now?
    - shiven 12y ago
      Wait a minute, I thought the Quran was that sequel. Wasn't it?
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        Perhaps; authorship is disputed, and some claim the Book of Mormon is the sequel from the original author. (Of course, its worth noting that that the problem goes back further than that and that "the Bible" is itself a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and a -- of disputed provenance, like the others -- sequel to that work.)
    - SL61 12y ago
      They actually did something very similar to that :P http://www.theonion.com/articles/reclusive-deity-hasnt-written-a-new-book-in-2000-y,36936/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/reclusive-deity-hasnt-writt...
wmeredith 12y ago
I'd be interested to hear more about the creative dynamic between this new book and To Kill a Mocking Bird. It says she put this new one aside 60 years ago to write TKaMB, but it features the characters later in their lives. I wonder if she was sketching out backstory to flesh out the characters and that was more compelling, so she pivoted and wrote To Kill a Mocking Bird instead?
- swamp40 12y ago
  It sounds to me like her editor thought the flashbacks to Scout's childhood were the best part of the unfinished book - so as you said, she pivoted to the good stuff.
  - mercer 12y ago
    While I expected it to annoy me, for some reason in this particular situation I love the fact that we're using very current terminology in the context of a 'classic' from the 60s. Perhaps because it 'anchors' the term and makes it seem more like a useful word to describe a phenomenon that has always existed, rather than annoying, very-specific jargon.
    - spike021 12y ago
      Maybe at the time they would be referred to as 'memories'.
      - celticninja 12y ago
        He meant pivot. It has become a bit of a buzzword and perhaps people think that it has only just come into practice, however it was always around it just hadn't been reduced to a single word.
        spike021 12y ago
        Oh I see.
      - deleted 12y ago
xianshou 12y ago
On the basis of regression to the mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean), or what we might call the "J.K. Rowling effect," it would be far too much to hope that the sequel will match the original. Nonetheless, this has got to set some sort of record for the gap between a novel and its sequel. Interestingly, there is a list of gaps between film sequels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_longest_gaps_between_film_sequels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_longest_gaps_betwee...), and the longest gap is over 63 years, but there is no such list for books!
- cryptoz 12y ago
  Isaac Asimov took a 30ish year break between the original Foundation trilogy and the sequels/prequels. And I thought that was a long break!
  - puranjay 12y ago
    In between, he probably put out 200 odd books. The man wrote like his life depended on it. As far as gaps go, I'm still hoping GRRM won't break any records
    - venomsnake 12y ago
      Judging by Leviathan Wakes and the others from the expanse we are safe in the unfortunate case of "a jordan". It is written by his assistant and a friend of him. They are also the people that are his "hit by a bus" insurance. And I think that he will progress faster nowadays with the show. Not that I have high hopes for the series after book four and five.
      - puranjay 12y ago
        The show creators have apparently been already told about the ending, lest something unfortunate happen to GRRM. As things stand, I don't see him wrapping up the series even by Book 7, which, I hope to read before my kids go to college (I'm 26)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
renglis 12y ago
60 years on and it remains relevant and insightful into the events of today. We should all reread it. I look forward to the new book.
bshimmin 12y ago
I think this will be a massive seller, though (depressingly) probably nothing in comparison to a new Harry Potter. I also think it'll be great.
- celticninja 12y ago
  Why hate harry Potter? it probably encouraged many more people to pick up a book, some of whom may never have read a book otherwise, and then they may have gone on to read classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird.
  - RavingGoat 12y ago
    I agree. Harry Potter is a great "gateway drug".
samatman 12y ago
Perhaps David Gerrold will complete the War Against the Cthorr after all! We've only been waiting on that for twenty years...
- dsr_ 12y ago
  You mean this? https://plus.google.com/wm/4/+DanielKeysMoran/posts/dQx3oqkHjqz https://plus.google.com/wm/4/+DanielKeysMoran/posts/dQx3oqkH...
pervycreeper 12y ago
Despite widespread changes in social attitudes on some topics, To Kill a Mockingbird is still as relevant to today's world as it was when it was originally published.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- puranjay 12y ago
  That's because it is a timeless tale about the goodness of people, of faith and charity and humanity. Those are everlasting values. My girlfriend reads the book at least once a year. She says it keeps her grounded and optimistic. I started doing the exercise last year and I have to say, she is right.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    True. But also because it's a sensitive and nuanced examination of the fucked-uppedness of US culture with regards to race. I certainly hope that isn't everlasting, but the book remains depressingly relevant.
    - pervycreeper 12y ago
      That's an unfortunately narrow misreading. There are much more universal themes than that in the book.
      - SerpentJoe 12y ago
        There's nothing unfortunate about acknowledging the racial themes in To Kill A Mockingbird, and doing so doesn't diminish any of the other messages. It would be a shit book if it were only about one thing. One of the things it's about is race, unpleasant as it may be.
        pervycreeper 12y ago
        That's correct, but the GP comment is unfortunate in that it is either a deliberate misinterpretation of my comment, or one made from a very superficial understanding of the text.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
TwiztidK 12y ago
A writer working on a biography of Harper Lee came to my high school 6 or 7 years ago to give a presentation about her. He told us that she had written another book but didn't want to publish it due to the pressure she felt from the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, so she planned on having it published after she died. This is probably the book he was talking about. I can't remember exactly who the writer was, but he spoke about his experience interviewing Kurt Vonnegut for his biography, so it was probably Charles Shields.
- unreal37 12y ago
  Apparently, they only just found this manuscript hidden in a box "in the fall of 2014", so it was probably not the new book that person was talking about. In fact, this was the original book before "To Kill a Mockingbird" was written.
nathanb 12y ago
Embarrassingly, I first misread this as Harper Lee working on a sequel to the Hunger Games finale Mockingjay, and I was so confused.... I was forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird for school. I started reading it with a bad attitude. After I finished it, I immediately turned back to the first page and reread it, not with a school mindset but with a "this is amazing literature that I need in my life" mindset. If she was writing this "sequel" at the same time she was writing the original, they're likely to contain the same themes and the same timeless way of looking at life, society, and what it means to be human. I don't know if any novel could survive the pressure of being a long-delayed sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'm definitely willing to let it try!
- spike021 12y ago
  Apparently she was writing this novel first and incorporated flashbacks, which were so descriptive that someone (might've been her editor) strongly suggested she separate them into their own novel. I think it'll be great.
  - unreal37 12y ago
    Yes, this "sequel" was apparently the original book she wrote before her book editor told her to focus on when Scout was a child (the flashbacks). And they just found the manuscript hidden in a box a few months ago apparently.
    - nathanb 12y ago
      Yeah, am I the only one who's skeptical of the whole "hidden in a box" part? More like "hidden until we thought we could convince her to publish".
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
For anyone who hasn't seen it. "Hey Boo" is a pretty good documentary about Mockingbird and features Harper Lee. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/harper-lee-hey-boo/about-the-documentary/1972/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/harper-lee-...
fmax30 12y ago
To kill a mocking bird was the first novel i read in my life. I was only 11 (in 6th grade) at the time and took around 3-4 months (summer break) to complete it, to be honest this was the book that made me realize that reading english literature can be an extremely amazing and insightful experience. Granted i didn't understand many things that were in it at the time but it kept me hooked. Also i remember thinking that jean was a boy till i was 20-30 pages in realizing that she was in fact a girl.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Jem turned out to be a boy. When I started the book, all my classmates were sure she was truly outrageous.
etep 12y ago
Wow. Am currently reading "The Mockingbird Next Door" by Marja Mills. Brifely, Marja gained unprecedented access to the private life of Nelle Harper Lee. It is extremely interesting, and I am quite surprised at this turn of events. Good news!
mw44118 12y ago
To Kill a Mockingbird perpetuates the idea that women make false rape accusations. We shouldn't celebrate such a hurtful topic.
- themodelplumber 12y ago
  You're getting downvoted, but I think it's not because your claim lacks merit; rather the book perpetuates many ideas, of which that may be one. I'm sure fans of the book don't wish to perpetuate falsehoods surrounding a topic like rape, but they may naturally take a different perspective on what is being celebrated by sharing this news.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I downvoted him because he openly admitted to trolling.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law ? Actually, To Kill a Mockingbird perpetuates the idea that racist drunken white dads in the deep south in that era made false accusations and beat their daughters when their daughters hit on black men. Which is something that, you know, actually happened sometimes.
  - mw44118 12y ago
    Yep, just trolling. I agree with your analysis though.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  Your post perpetuates the idea that some women don't make false rape accusations, which is demonstrably false.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    You put the negation in the wrong place. "Some women don't make false rape accusations" -- true. My mother is a woman who has never made a false rape accusation. So is my wife. That's some women who don't make false rape accusations. "No women make false rape accusations" is what you probably meant to say. That's demonstrably false -- some women do.
taivare 12y ago
ask HN: seems to be down, sorry, off topic, I want to publish eBook/only, and have all revenues go to charity. not a lot of info on web, regarding this subject. One author who put a Link on the end of his eBook is all.
chimeracoder 12y ago
I was incredibly excited to see this news upon seeing the headline in the New York Times, and surprised, because Harper Lee has been a recluse for almost her entire life since writing To Kill a Mockingbird, and has repeatedly insisted that she had no desire to publish another book ("I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again."[0]) After doing a bit of digging, however, I'm a bit concerned. Now, Lee is almost 90, and has suffered a stroke that seems to have had lasting effects. She filed a lawsuit in 2007 against the son-in-law of her former agent, claiming that he took advantage of her mental state during her recovery and duped her into assigning him the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird[1]. For much of her adult life, her sister handled press relations and shielded Lee from these pressures. Her sister passed away three months ago, and suddenly this new book comes to light[2]. I really hope these suspicions are wrong, and that there's nothing shady at play here. I'm excited to read the book, but I can't help but be skeptical of the timing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#After_To_Kill_a_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#After_To_Kill_a_Moc... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#Lawsuit_to_regain_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#Lawsuit_to_regain_c... [2] (I dislike linking to Gawker Media sites on principle, but Jezebel actually wrote a good post digging into the details of this - "Be Suspicious of the New Harper Lee Novel".)
- ijk 12y ago
  I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match. If they were both written in the same time period by the same author, they should be pretty similar. I do hope there's nothing untoward going on here and that this book lives up to the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the possibility is at least worth examining.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match. You might compare it and the original to the work of other authors, such as Truman Capote.
chengiz 12y ago
It seems everybody here loves "To Kill a Mockingbird". To me, it's a well written but ultimately shallow novel. Finch is your typical woman's fantasy man: great at fatherhood, great at his work, morally upright, totally scrupulous, and yes, best shot in the county. The black people in the novel rarely get a voice, except one of platitudes, and the race relations stuff is totally black and white (excuse the pun), with no particular insight. It counts as literature only because of its propitious timing around the Civil Rights movement. It's a fine school reading list book but that is all it is.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
  > a fine school reading list book I'm pretty sure a book can't get on those lists any more without a theme of oppression or alienation. I'm not joking. Almost everything they make kids read any more is somehow about injustice or bigotry. Apropos Southern Gothic lit, I'm chuckling at the thought of a typical 9th grade english teacher trying to tackle a much better book like Flannery Oconnor's "The Violent Bear it Away." Doesn't quite fit the essay templates they raise the kids on.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    Then you have High School AP English, where "As I Lay Dying" is a standard text. I think "Catch-22" is as well. Say what you will about those books, they're not necessarily essay-ready in the same way "To Kill A Mockingbird" is.
- kitbrennan 12y ago
  I think you missed the point. The brilliance in To Kill a Mockingbird is the way it makes us feel the confusion felt by a six year old looking at an adult world. At the time, many people did see race relations as 'black or white', and people thought there was a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether someone that was black was 'less of a man' that someone that was white. What Scout really shows us is that children are not born with this pre-conceived notion, and are generally confused by it... and we should be too. To address your specific points: the black people were not supposed to have much of a voice in the novel, because black people didn't have much of a voice back then. There wasn't much insight (in terms of speeches or things said) around race relations, because to a six year old girl the insight doesn't matter. All that matters is one of fairness - that a child cannot fathom how crazy adults must be to not give black people a voice or to treat them differently, just because of their skin. PS: In response to your comment about Finch, you're right. Finch is perfect - because he's Scout's father - and most six year old girls do think of their father as perfect; if Scout hadn't been written that way then her character would have seemed shallow and wrong. PPS: I've clearly thought about this too much and what I've wrote seems a bit preachy - as with any book, it all comes down to personal taste.
icantthinkofone 12y ago
Great. But what does this have to do with Hacker News?
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  This is HN.
  - icantthinkofone 12y ago
    You make no sense at all. My complaint is about the numerous postings of "general news" here on HN. If I wanted general news, I would not come here to find it and, instead, would go to my favorite actual news sites. HN is not a general news collection point. Hence my question, why is this here? EDIT: Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if you are just agreeing with me.
jqm 12y ago
I'm sure the first book was very good but I never read it and feel negatively about it. Why? Simple. Because it was on the high school required reading list. I looked around at the teachers, looked around at the town, looked around at the larger society in which I lived, and decided very early I was having no part of indoctrination. It's too bad. Because it probably is a good book. The bible might be as well. But I'll never know because suspicion of indoctrination ruined it for me. Maybe this is a personal failing. But putting books on the high school required reading list is a good way to make thinking people suspicious of motive in my view.

270 points by InternetGiant 12y ago

ojbyrne 12y ago

I thought I was seeing an onion headline at first.

mrkipling 12y ago
...why?
- apetresc 12y ago
  Because it would suit their style, juxtaposing two contrasting things (classical literature and marketing-driven pop culture that has lots of sequels).
- savanaly 12y ago
  I get it. To take the joke even farther, you might imagine a headline from The Onion along the lines of "God working on sequel to The Bible". Not funny when I state it all dryly of course, but hopefully you can see the joke now?
  - shiven 12y ago
    Wait a minute, I thought the Quran was that sequel. Wasn't it?
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Perhaps; authorship is disputed, and some claim the Book of Mormon is the sequel from the original author. (Of course, its worth noting that that the problem goes back further than that and that "the Bible" is itself a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and a -- of disputed provenance, like the others -- sequel to that work.)
  - SL61 12y ago
    They actually did something very similar to that :P http://www.theonion.com/articles/reclusive-deity-hasnt-written-a-new-book-in-2000-y,36936/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/reclusive-deity-hasnt-writt...

wmeredith 12y ago

I'd be interested to hear more about the creative dynamic between this new book and To Kill a Mocking Bird. It says she put this new one aside 60 years ago to write TKaMB, but it features the characters later in their lives. I wonder if she was sketching out backstory to flesh out the characters and that was more compelling, so she pivoted and wrote To Kill a Mocking Bird instead?

swamp40 12y ago
It sounds to me like her editor thought the flashbacks to Scout's childhood were the best part of the unfinished book - so as you said, she pivoted to the good stuff.
- mercer 12y ago
  While I expected it to annoy me, for some reason in this particular situation I love the fact that we're using very current terminology in the context of a 'classic' from the 60s. Perhaps because it 'anchors' the term and makes it seem more like a useful word to describe a phenomenon that has always existed, rather than annoying, very-specific jargon.
  - spike021 12y ago
    Maybe at the time they would be referred to as 'memories'.
    - celticninja 12y ago
      He meant pivot. It has become a bit of a buzzword and perhaps people think that it has only just come into practice, however it was always around it just hadn't been reduced to a single word.
      - spike021 12y ago
        Oh I see.
    - deleted 12y ago

xianshou 12y ago

On the basis of regression to the mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean), or what we might call the "J.K. Rowling effect," it would be far too much to hope that the sequel will match the original. Nonetheless, this has got to set some sort of record for the gap between a novel and its sequel. Interestingly, there is a list of gaps between film sequels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_longest_gaps_between_film_sequels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_longest_gaps_betwee...), and the longest gap is over 63 years, but there is no such list for books!

cryptoz 12y ago
Isaac Asimov took a 30ish year break between the original Foundation trilogy and the sequels/prequels. And I thought that was a long break!
- puranjay 12y ago
  In between, he probably put out 200 odd books. The man wrote like his life depended on it. As far as gaps go, I'm still hoping GRRM won't break any records
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    Judging by Leviathan Wakes and the others from the expanse we are safe in the unfortunate case of "a jordan". It is written by his assistant and a friend of him. They are also the people that are his "hit by a bus" insurance. And I think that he will progress faster nowadays with the show. Not that I have high hopes for the series after book four and five.
    - puranjay 12y ago
      The show creators have apparently been already told about the ending, lest something unfortunate happen to GRRM. As things stand, I don't see him wrapping up the series even by Book 7, which, I hope to read before my kids go to college (I'm 26)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

renglis 12y ago

60 years on and it remains relevant and insightful into the events of today. We should all reread it. I look forward to the new book.

bshimmin 12y ago

I think this will be a massive seller, though (depressingly) probably nothing in comparison to a new Harry Potter. I also think it'll be great.

celticninja 12y ago
Why hate harry Potter? it probably encouraged many more people to pick up a book, some of whom may never have read a book otherwise, and then they may have gone on to read classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird.
- RavingGoat 12y ago
  I agree. Harry Potter is a great "gateway drug".

samatman 12y ago

Perhaps David Gerrold will complete the War Against the Cthorr after all! We've only been waiting on that for twenty years...

dsr_ 12y ago
You mean this? https://plus.google.com/wm/4/+DanielKeysMoran/posts/dQx3oqkHjqz https://plus.google.com/wm/4/+DanielKeysMoran/posts/dQx3oqkH...

pervycreeper 12y ago

Despite widespread changes in social attitudes on some topics, To Kill a Mockingbird is still as relevant to today's world as it was when it was originally published.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
puranjay 12y ago
That's because it is a timeless tale about the goodness of people, of faith and charity and humanity. Those are everlasting values. My girlfriend reads the book at least once a year. She says it keeps her grounded and optimistic. I started doing the exercise last year and I have to say, she is right.
- wpietri 12y ago
  True. But also because it's a sensitive and nuanced examination of the fucked-uppedness of US culture with regards to race. I certainly hope that isn't everlasting, but the book remains depressingly relevant.
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    That's an unfortunately narrow misreading. There are much more universal themes than that in the book.
    - SerpentJoe 12y ago
      There's nothing unfortunate about acknowledging the racial themes in To Kill A Mockingbird, and doing so doesn't diminish any of the other messages. It would be a shit book if it were only about one thing. One of the things it's about is race, unpleasant as it may be.
      - pervycreeper 12y ago
        That's correct, but the GP comment is unfortunate in that it is either a deliberate misinterpretation of my comment, or one made from a very superficial understanding of the text.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

TwiztidK 12y ago

A writer working on a biography of Harper Lee came to my high school 6 or 7 years ago to give a presentation about her. He told us that she had written another book but didn't want to publish it due to the pressure she felt from the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, so she planned on having it published after she died. This is probably the book he was talking about. I can't remember exactly who the writer was, but he spoke about his experience interviewing Kurt Vonnegut for his biography, so it was probably Charles Shields.

unreal37 12y ago
Apparently, they only just found this manuscript hidden in a box "in the fall of 2014", so it was probably not the new book that person was talking about. In fact, this was the original book before "To Kill a Mockingbird" was written.

nathanb 12y ago

Embarrassingly, I first misread this as Harper Lee working on a sequel to the Hunger Games finale Mockingjay, and I was so confused.... I was forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird for school. I started reading it with a bad attitude. After I finished it, I immediately turned back to the first page and reread it, not with a school mindset but with a "this is amazing literature that I need in my life" mindset. If she was writing this "sequel" at the same time she was writing the original, they're likely to contain the same themes and the same timeless way of looking at life, society, and what it means to be human. I don't know if any novel could survive the pressure of being a long-delayed sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'm definitely willing to let it try!

spike021 12y ago
Apparently she was writing this novel first and incorporated flashbacks, which were so descriptive that someone (might've been her editor) strongly suggested she separate them into their own novel. I think it'll be great.
- unreal37 12y ago
  Yes, this "sequel" was apparently the original book she wrote before her book editor told her to focus on when Scout was a child (the flashbacks). And they just found the manuscript hidden in a box a few months ago apparently.
  - nathanb 12y ago
    Yeah, am I the only one who's skeptical of the whole "hidden in a box" part? More like "hidden until we thought we could convince her to publish".

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

For anyone who hasn't seen it. "Hey Boo" is a pretty good documentary about Mockingbird and features Harper Lee. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/harper-lee-hey-boo/about-the-documentary/1972/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/harper-lee-...

fmax30 12y ago

To kill a mocking bird was the first novel i read in my life. I was only 11 (in 6th grade) at the time and took around 3-4 months (summer break) to complete it, to be honest this was the book that made me realize that reading english literature can be an extremely amazing and insightful experience. Granted i didn't understand many things that were in it at the time but it kept me hooked. Also i remember thinking that jean was a boy till i was 20-30 pages in realizing that she was in fact a girl.

danielweber 12y ago
Jem turned out to be a boy. When I started the book, all my classmates were sure she was truly outrageous.

etep 12y ago

Wow. Am currently reading "The Mockingbird Next Door" by Marja Mills. Brifely, Marja gained unprecedented access to the private life of Nelle Harper Lee. It is extremely interesting, and I am quite surprised at this turn of events. Good news!

mw44118 12y ago

To Kill a Mockingbird perpetuates the idea that women make false rape accusations. We shouldn't celebrate such a hurtful topic.

themodelplumber 12y ago
You're getting downvoted, but I think it's not because your claim lacks merit; rather the book perpetuates many ideas, of which that may be one. I'm sure fans of the book don't wish to perpetuate falsehoods surrounding a topic like rape, but they may naturally take a different perspective on what is being celebrated by sharing this news.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I downvoted him because he openly admitted to trolling.
lotharbot 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law ? Actually, To Kill a Mockingbird perpetuates the idea that racist drunken white dads in the deep south in that era made false accusations and beat their daughters when their daughters hit on black men. Which is something that, you know, actually happened sometimes.
- mw44118 12y ago
  Yep, just trolling. I agree with your analysis though.
anonbanker 12y ago
Your post perpetuates the idea that some women don't make false rape accusations, which is demonstrably false.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  You put the negation in the wrong place. "Some women don't make false rape accusations" -- true. My mother is a woman who has never made a false rape accusation. So is my wife. That's some women who don't make false rape accusations. "No women make false rape accusations" is what you probably meant to say. That's demonstrably false -- some women do.

taivare 12y ago

ask HN: seems to be down, sorry, off topic, I want to publish eBook/only, and have all revenues go to charity. not a lot of info on web, regarding this subject. One author who put a Link on the end of his eBook is all.

chimeracoder 12y ago

I was incredibly excited to see this news upon seeing the headline in the New York Times, and surprised, because Harper Lee has been a recluse for almost her entire life since writing To Kill a Mockingbird, and has repeatedly insisted that she had no desire to publish another book ("I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again."[0]) After doing a bit of digging, however, I'm a bit concerned. Now, Lee is almost 90, and has suffered a stroke that seems to have had lasting effects. She filed a lawsuit in 2007 against the son-in-law of her former agent, claiming that he took advantage of her mental state during her recovery and duped her into assigning him the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird[1]. For much of her adult life, her sister handled press relations and shielded Lee from these pressures. Her sister passed away three months ago, and suddenly this new book comes to light[2]. I really hope these suspicions are wrong, and that there's nothing shady at play here. I'm excited to read the book, but I can't help but be skeptical of the timing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#After_To_Kill_a_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#After_To_Kill_a_Moc... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#Lawsuit_to_regain_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#Lawsuit_to_regain_c... [2] (I dislike linking to Gawker Media sites on principle, but Jezebel actually wrote a good post digging into the details of this - "Be Suspicious of the New Harper Lee Novel".)

ijk 12y ago
I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match. If they were both written in the same time period by the same author, they should be pretty similar. I do hope there's nothing untoward going on here and that this book lives up to the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the possibility is at least worth examining.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match. You might compare it and the original to the work of other authors, such as Truman Capote.

chengiz 12y ago

It seems everybody here loves "To Kill a Mockingbird". To me, it's a well written but ultimately shallow novel. Finch is your typical woman's fantasy man: great at fatherhood, great at his work, morally upright, totally scrupulous, and yes, best shot in the county. The black people in the novel rarely get a voice, except one of platitudes, and the race relations stuff is totally black and white (excuse the pun), with no particular insight. It counts as literature only because of its propitious timing around the Civil Rights movement. It's a fine school reading list book but that is all it is.

deleted 12y ago
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a8da6b0c91d 12y ago
> a fine school reading list book I'm pretty sure a book can't get on those lists any more without a theme of oppression or alienation. I'm not joking. Almost everything they make kids read any more is somehow about injustice or bigotry. Apropos Southern Gothic lit, I'm chuckling at the thought of a typical 9th grade english teacher trying to tackle a much better book like Flannery Oconnor's "The Violent Bear it Away." Doesn't quite fit the essay templates they raise the kids on.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  Then you have High School AP English, where "As I Lay Dying" is a standard text. I think "Catch-22" is as well. Say what you will about those books, they're not necessarily essay-ready in the same way "To Kill A Mockingbird" is.
kitbrennan 12y ago
I think you missed the point. The brilliance in To Kill a Mockingbird is the way it makes us feel the confusion felt by a six year old looking at an adult world. At the time, many people did see race relations as 'black or white', and people thought there was a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether someone that was black was 'less of a man' that someone that was white. What Scout really shows us is that children are not born with this pre-conceived notion, and are generally confused by it... and we should be too. To address your specific points: the black people were not supposed to have much of a voice in the novel, because black people didn't have much of a voice back then. There wasn't much insight (in terms of speeches or things said) around race relations, because to a six year old girl the insight doesn't matter. All that matters is one of fairness - that a child cannot fathom how crazy adults must be to not give black people a voice or to treat them differently, just because of their skin. PS: In response to your comment about Finch, you're right. Finch is perfect - because he's Scout's father - and most six year old girls do think of their father as perfect; if Scout hadn't been written that way then her character would have seemed shallow and wrong. PPS: I've clearly thought about this too much and what I've wrote seems a bit preachy - as with any book, it all comes down to personal taste.

icantthinkofone 12y ago

Great. But what does this have to do with Hacker News?

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
This is HN.
- icantthinkofone 12y ago
  You make no sense at all. My complaint is about the numerous postings of "general news" here on HN. If I wanted general news, I would not come here to find it and, instead, would go to my favorite actual news sites. HN is not a general news collection point. Hence my question, why is this here? EDIT: Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if you are just agreeing with me.

jqm 12y ago

I'm sure the first book was very good but I never read it and feel negatively about it. Why? Simple. Because it was on the high school required reading list. I looked around at the teachers, looked around at the town, looked around at the larger society in which I lived, and decided very early I was having no part of indoctrination. It's too bad. Because it probably is a good book. The bible might be as well. But I'll never know because suspicion of indoctrination ruined it for me. Maybe this is a personal failing. But putting books on the high school required reading list is a good way to make thinking people suspicious of motive in my view.