Whatever happened to Scout?

I am not a terribly good reader of non-fiction. I've done my fair share so far with graduate school and all on my resume, but I was never particularly delighted by the whole thing. I cannot pinpoint my internal angst over the "real" stuff. My father, who taught me to read primarily by modeling what an avid reader does, is a prolific reader of non-fiction - two or three books a week if he can afford to get new ones. (The library long ago banned my family from its cozy confines.) And when he can't get anything new he just rereads the books in his thousand-deep library. (He suffers from an inability to read fiction. Go figure.) My mother is a librarian. Given this literary genealogy, you'd think that I'd be okay with books of all sorts, but the non-fiction tomes usually elicit a grimace followed by avoidance or a deep sigh that presages a Sisyphisian-like effort. I'll read 'em, but by god I won't be liking it.

Unless a book's author is a member of or devotee to the Frankfurt School, I really don't have the sustained ability to read non-fiction. There's very little inherent puzzle-solving in the genre. It's very tiered and organized and nicely laid out for the detail-oriented types who get into such things. I prefer the psychological zaniness that comes from narrative, that macabre technique that attempts to bring individual structure to pyschological chaos. And I like mysteries (not only the genre but in general). Fiction in its various forms tends often to be about mystery and puzzle-solving, which I suspect is why I love it so. Good fiction is like finding yourself in a new city without a map, a friend, or any food. Survival becomes a matter of some urgency, and you have only your wits to guide you. It's quite a thrill. (When reading a favorite author the situation is the same except you've got that friend encouraging you along your journey.)

Recently though I took a delightful stroll through a rather interesting piece of non-fiction. Mockingbird by Charles Shields is a brilliant biography of the infamously shy and notoriously quick-tongued Nelle Harper Lee, beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird. While Shields' writing is more Beverly Cleary than Frederic Jameson, his investigative skill is top-notch. Lee quit giving interviews several decades back and never appreciated public attempts to intrude on her private life. This made Shields' task significantly more difficult, yet he somehow manages to paint a mysterious and deeply enduring picture of an author who wrote not merely of an era but of the entirety of American history through the eyes of a precocious pre-pubescent.

Most astute readers figure out the deeply autobiographical features of To Kill a Mockingbird quite early on, and many are left wondering whatever happened to young Scout, serious Jem, and the other residents of Maycomb. (Of course, there is very little mystery left surrounding young Dill, except perhaps the source of Capote's deep suspicion of those who dared love him.) Lee never wrote anything else, despite several different on-going projects, and has quietly slipped into the mists of her fictional alter-ego, Jean Louise. Yet the real Nelle Harper Lee is alive and well, living an active life in Monroeville, Alabama (the source of the fictional Maycomb), with annual sojourns to New York City, the town that nurtured her budding genius. Shields does an excellent job of charting Nelle's life in tiny, yet thriving, Monroeville up to the success of her first and only book. He finds long-lost friends, antagonistic sororiety sisters, and fellow literary aspirants, all of whom spoke candidly about the brash young Nelle. Lee became quite famous during the decade or so following the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, and Shields keep readers informed of the most historically documented portion of her life. Then he uses his impressive research skills to speculate on the last 4 decades of her life. He reaches very few solid conclusions, though his speculations are sound, fair, and obviously the result of a someone who loved her book as much as the rest of us.

In the end, he does justice to the book, the author, and to the mystery that continually surrounds Nelle Harper Lee. I don't make it through many of the "real" ones, but this one is excellent, well worth the time and the puzzle.