By releasing Go Set a Watchman after fifty years of publishing silence, Harper Lee has sparked interest and speculation from major news outlets and bloggers alike about the possibility of more “rediscovered” manuscripts.
It has been widely
reported that, starting in the 1980s, the media-shy author worked on either a
nonfiction book or a crime novel about a Baptist preacher who was
suspected of killing members of his family for insurance money, and who was
then shot to death at the funeral of one of his alleged victims.
The New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal have each published
articles about the discovery of four manuscript pages found among the possessions
of the Reverend’s former attorney, Tom Radney, who passed away in 2011.
According to the Wall
Street Journal, “(The manuscript) contains handwritten notes, including the
title on the first page and a final, handwritten paragraph on the fourth
page. The handwriting does not appear to be Ms.
Lee’s. (Radney’s granddaughter) said the handwriting bears some
resemblance to Mr. Radney’s, but her grandfather could not have typed the
document because he did not own a typewriter in the 1980s.”
Could these pages then
have been written after the 1980s? During my 2008 interview with
Radney, he told me he had remained in contact with Lee for years, and she
always claimed to be working on the book. Perhaps he grew tired of
waiting and decided to try and write a version himself. It would
make sense to start the novel with the moment the Reverend first called, asking
for help.
According to the Journal
piece, “The story begins with a call from Mr. Maxwell to his attorney, here
renamed Jonathan Larkin. It quickly jumps to a discussion of the
attorney’s roots in Ireland.”
This strikes me as
Radney’s story. In fact he began our discussion by telling a similar
story, although he left out the historical background. The first
paragraph of the interview transcript reads as follows:
Radney: Let me tell you
what I think you need for a start as far as my involvement with Reverend
Maxwell. I had never heard of Reverend Maxwell. I got a
call about two in the morning, which is not unusual in law practice. Somebody’s
in trouble, they call you. And he called me. He said,
“Mr. Radney, they’re down here at my house accusing me of killing my
wife. Would you come down and help me?” … I said, “Reverend, I don’t
know you,” and I said, “I have to have a down payment.”
In my thriller novel, The Reverend , I wrote a similar scene based, in part, on Radney’s
account given during our interview. For those who are interested, I
will post the excerpt Thursday.
I find it hard to
believe that Radney would attempt to edit something written by Harper
Lee. It is far more likely that he was attempting to write down his
own story.
Radney told me that Lee
intended to begin her book in a different way.
“Harper thought the
opening… ought to be the shooting of the Reverend, and then go back to tell the
story. But the true facts are as soon as Robert Burns shot the
Reverend there in that funeral home, the organist kept
playing. People got under their seats and this one big fat lady…
knocked out one of these windows that swings and got in, and couldn’t get in
and couldn’t get out. She (Lee) thought that would be an excellent
opening.”
Although perhaps
entertaining, this beginning does not accurately reflect what happened after Robert Burns shot the Reverend at the funeral of his
niece. Newspaper accounts of the scene mention none of these
fanciful details. So either Radney’s imagination was running away
from him, or Lee wasn’t planning to write a true crime novel after all.
Perhaps we will
eventually find out. After years of refusing to publish another
book, Go Set a Watchman is now setting records for sales. Lee’s
attorney has hinted that more books could be forthcoming,
and CNN.com recently reported an unconfirmed account that Lee had, in fact, completed The
Reverend.
According to
the CNN
piece, “Wayne Flynt said he’d spoken with Lee’s sister before her death
about the mystery manuscript.
“Her sister,
Louise Conner, told me and my wife that (Lee) finished the novel sitting at her
dining room table in Eufaula, Alabama.
Louise said she read it and it was far better than ‘To Kill a
Mockingbird’ or ‘In Cold Blood,’” he said. “Somewhere out there at least one
person, her sister, says there was a book far superior to either one of those
classic books.”
Who knows if or when
Harper Lee’s version of The Reverend will ever be found and
published? In the meantime, as a kind of writing exercise, I have decided to
write a chapter based Radney’s account. It posts here at Christamar.com next
Sunday.
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