Anais' Annotations: "Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee" by Wayne Floyd

Anyone can tell you I love Harper Lee. Author of the seminal Southern text “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1960), Lee is one of my greatest literary icons. Just a couple of months back, I presented research on “Mockingbird” at AUM and in preparation for that event, one of my fabulous professors loaned me a book on Lee. The book was “Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee” (2017) by Wayne Flynt. A truly fabulous piece of nonfiction, I thoroughly enjoyed much of the book’s content– but I have a bone to pick with it. 

To understand Flynt’s connection to the Lee family, one must first know his background. Flynt is a professor emeritus of history at Auburn University. I was acquainted with Flynt’s work years before reading “Mockingbird Songs” because of my focus on Southern literature. His work is heavily focused on Southern studies, which led him into some literary involvement.  

Calling his research good would be an understatement; in fact, much of his work is absolutely brilliant, and his name has been in my works cited pages on several occasions. 

The novel is based around the letters exchanged between Flynt and Lee, as well as those between him and her sisters, Alice and Louise. As a concept, the book is quite interesting. Each chapter features a brief introduction to contextualize the letters that follow it.

Interwoven in these  notes is a great deal of biographical information on Lee, especially details about her final years. 

The material presented offers an engaging perspective on Lee’s life. Her wit comes straight through the pages, as does her famously ornery personality. The downside to exploring these letters is the obvious decline of the Alabama author throughout the progression. In many ways, the differences in length and content of the letters from beginning to end give readers a sense of her health struggles.  

Her later life appears tragically isolated. 

For those unfamiliar with Lee’s literature, it may sound like just another old lady at a nursing home. However, those of us who consider her a state treasure understand how troubling it is to read the withering away of such an icon. There is simply no way to read through these letters without connecting to her loneliness. 

While it pulls on the heartstrings and offers personal insight into a larger-than-life character, I take issue with Flynt’s work. Lee was known as an incredibly private person. Despite the fame of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” interviews with her were often difficult to obtain and she made few public appearances. Lee decided to lead a private life, and the same letters published by Flynt are part of that privacy. 

Any time posthumous correspondences are released, a moral dilemma enters the conversation. Writers may pen a short story or poem that they expect the public to see.

Letters to another person are a whole different situation, as these are meant to be private.

The material in the letters may be sensitive or only meant for the reader. Flynt even discusses within the novel how concerned some members of the Lee family were about people using connections to them as sources of information. 

As for this English major, it strikes me as a seriously low move to put these letters on display. Flynt is a researcher, and I fully believe he could have crafted an inspiring book on Lee using his own connections, resources and talents without exposing so many intimate details about her life, particularly during her vulnerable last few months. 

I am glad that I read “Mockingbird Songs” because it has solidified my feelings on publishing letters of the deceased. With all the respect in the world for Flynt as a writer and scholar, I could not stop shaking my head during this read. Based on my own ethics, I have to give this book a 4 out of 10.