The late Ms Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a MockingBird, (described by some as the perfect American book of the 20th century), is amongst a rare group of individuals whose fame had been secured by their first and overwhelming success, and would eventually overshadow everything else that they did, or would or would no longer do and in some, led to a life of recluse and seclusion. One is also reminded of J.D Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye, or the astronaut Neil Armstrong as the First Man on the Moon. Joseph Heller (Catch-22) would probably qualify as well.
The complexity of these luminaries’ stories can hardly be generalised nor adequately narrated in this simple post. However, some fluffy psychological babble might be tolerated here.
Clearly there is the element of (1) achieving that huge overwhelming success that one had never expected or been quite prepared for, or (2) even feeling unworthy to have one’s work captured the public’s imagination as powerfully as it did, and (3) there may be a reticence to relive the narrative or to constantly re-interpret one’s own performance publically, especially if (2) was the case. Arguably, most writers do not envisage the novel as performance art. It is rather, a work of monument, and like most monuments, stood on its own merit, without embellishment, to be best left to the eyes of the beholder to interpret upon its significance – to be hated or loved, as the case and times may be. The double Booker Prize winner, Peter Carey, had alluded to the idea that it’s the individual reader prerogative to create the ‘movie in his or her mind’.
Indeed, isn’t it true that the definitive interpretation of an original factual work or event, or a person, is often not attributed not to the original work or truth itself, but to the most vivid recreation of that reality? Gregory Peck’s portrayals of the characters of Atticus Finch or General MacArthur have become to many, the definitive images of the originals. Indeed, the latter may seem almost dull by comparison. Consider the unforgettable gritty rasp of the actor George C Scott’s portrayal of Patton, compared with the timbre of the real General Patton’s voice himself.
(4) Early success in life is also fraught with its own downsides. Ms Lee was asked once by her cousin, Richard Williams, who ran the local drugstore in her hometown of Monroeville, why she never wrote another book. Her reply was “When you have a hit like that, you can’t go anywhere but down.”*
In a similar vein, there is an account in the 1999 New York Times obituary of Joseph Heller which narrated an account of an interview in which his response to the notion that he had never produced anything else as good as Catch-22, was, “Who has?”.
“Mockingbird still says what it has to say; it has managed to survive the years without preamble.” (Harper Lee, writing to her editor, in declining to write an introduction to a new edition of the book)
“One small step for Man, one giant step for Mankind”. Neil Armstrong did not quite come to terms with being portrayed as representing Man. Indeed, he chose to correct those powerful and regal prose with a far more down to earth account of what he did say on the moon (“one small step for a man, one giant step for Mankind”). That would of course change the tenor of everything. So much for the grand gesture. Analysis of audio recordings would agree with Mr Armstrong’s recollection of what he said.
Perhaps the last thing that can be said about the very private world of some of these tortured creative souls, is the community (home, town, academic, or artistic) that protected them from the glare of unwanted attention, and allowed them the semblance of a normal life and existence, and to emerge somewhat unscathed and surprisingly positive in the retrospect, when they were eulogized.
*Ms Harper Lee’s second novel, published in 2015, Go Set a Watchman, the sequel to her biggest success, was actually written two years earlier, before To Kill a Mockingbird was written. How much more interesting can that be? Early critics excoriated this sequel (or creative prequel) as diminishing the classic itself (“better not to have been published at all”). Such arrogance! Is it any wonder that Harper Lee has never gotten into analysing her own success? And has never accepted an invitation to introduce Mockingbird in her lifetime.