Harper Lee, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' author, dies at 89-- Demi Tomasides, 1st

Okay, I just want to start off this blog by saying that Harper Lee is one of my favorite authors of all time and To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book of all time. She is amazing author and smart and has created the most cherished character we hold: Atticus. So, when my grandmother texted me Friday and said that she had passed away I was very sad. Her family sent this out: "The family of Nelle Harper Lee, of Monroeville, Alabama, announced today, with great sadness, that Ms. Lee passed away in her sleep early this morning. Her passing was unexpected. She remained in good basic health until her passing. The family is in mourning and there will be a private funeral service in the upcoming days, as she had requested."

Okay, analysis time: Lee was always a private person. She only did a couple of interviews in her life time, never really let in gobs of adoring fans to her Alabama home. Also, To Kill a Mockingbird was the only book she had published...until this summer. And let me tell you, I have a lot to say about that. So backstory: This summer her lawyer just happened to find a copy of the prequel of TKAM, entitled Go Set a Watchman. This was the first book she had written. She turned it in to be published before TKAM  was ever a thing and the publisher said something along the lines of, "I don't really think that's going to be a hit, but write me a whole other story from the perspective of Scout when she was a girl, and then we can talk." So she did. And now it's one of the most revered books in the world (that isn't a snoozer). So what ever happened to the first manuscript? The one that was a draft even when she turned it in? Funny you should ask because it was published not 7 months ago. Now just a mear few months before that second book was published, Harper's sister died, who handled all of the signing of papers and legal work and (as I imagine keeping books that she didn't want published, unpublished,) because Harper couldn't do it herself anymore. She knew her sister better than anyone. So it seems pretty sketchy that 3 months after her sister dies, this book, after 50 years, magically turns up and is published, being one of the top selling books of 2015. My thinking is that if Harper wanted Go Set a Watchman to be published, she had 50 years to do it. The big publishing agencies just waited until she was very vulnerable to publish it.

So, ya that was my ranting analysis, And as a synthesis point you could go the direction of how the captains of industry did anything in their power to make money. Or you go go the more positive route of saying how To Kill a Mockingbird is like a modern day Uncle Tom's Cabin because they both raise a burning awareness of the racial inequality of the time and start a spark of equality that people would continue to help grow.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/19/entertainment/harper-lee-obit-feat/index.html