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Why Harper Lee Kept Her Silence for 55 Years
Harper Lee has died only a few months after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird’s long-shelved prequel， Go Set a Watchman （2015）.1 This article， originally published in 2011， asks why Harper Lee was so burdened by her early success.
The professional lives of most novelists closely resemble2 each other. They write a novel； it is published； they embark on a round of publicity.3 They appear at literary festivals， where they garner a quarter of the audience of some television chef in the tent next door， and at signings in bookshops， with the aim of signing as much stock as possible.4
Through it all， the novelist attempts to remain amusing， affable5 and patient. Three years later， he will publish another novel， and the whole experience repeats itself. As Samuel Beckett wrote in Worstward Ho： “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”6
For some writers， however， the need to try again， to fail again， hardly arises7. The extraordinary career—or perhaps non-career—of Harper Lee bears witness to8 a quite different way of conducting a writing life. She wrote one novel， an immediate classic and perhaps the best-selling novel of the 20th century， To Kill a Mockingbird. Since its publication in 1960， Lee has published no other book. A second novel， entitled The Long Goodbye， apparently came to an abrupt end on the day her agent，9 JP Lippincott， expressed an interest in her first. “Her pen froze10，” he said.
Lee， who turned 85 in 2011， has not been entirely absent from the public record since， and her neighbours in Monroeville， Alabama， wouldn’t agree that she is a recluse， either.11 Politely refusing to talk to journalists since 1964 is not the same thing as withdrawing from society.12 Since that has been her policy， her agreeing to co-operate with a new literary biographer，13 Marja Mills， who claims to tell the true story behind her years of silence， is important and surprising news. Will this biography tell the whole truth？ Can anyone ever really know why an author falls silent—even the author herself？
Lee came from one of the 20th century’s richest literary schools， the American South.14 Work by Faulkner， Tennessee Williams and Flannery O’Connor examined the South’s flavour of intense， self-regarding decorum and passionately defended injustice and violence.15 It is sometimes regarded as extraordinary that Nelle Harper Lee came from the same small town as another great Southern writer， Truman Capote16—that， indeed， they were neighbours as children. Some have gone as far as to speculate wildly that To Kill a Mockingbird might actually have been a near-collaboration between the pair， as Capote’s documentary study In Cold Blood seems to have been.17 Much more common is the writer who is effectively destroyed by a single huge success. The burden of fame and acclaim weighs down particularly on the creative faculties.31 Ian McEwan32 has spoken of feeling， when he embarks on promotion of his books， like “an employee of his own former self”.
The task of balancing the awareness of past success with the necessary task of producing new work is not one that every writer can achieve. And， perhaps， these single huge successes are much harder to deal with when they come early on in a writer’s career， before they have learnt to， in Kipling’s words， “treat the two impostors” of triumph and disaster “just the same”.33 It’s striking that out of the four novelists， for instance， who have won the Booker Prize in the last 40 years with a first novel， none has so far managed to write a successful follow-up.34
Lee has succeeded in protecting herself over the last half-century， and living a life which is of her choosing. In a rare statement recently， a letter to Oprah Winfrey’s magazine， she suggested how out-of-touch with modern life she has become： “In an abundant society where people have laptops， cellphones， iPods and minds like empty rooms， I still plod along with books.”35 That detachment36 is， clearly， necessary to her. It is the paradox of the novel that it could not have been written by someone in love with literary fame； that the fame it achieved and deserved killed off any prospect of a succeeding masterpiece.37
1. To Kill a Mockingbird：《杀死一只知更鸟》，哈珀·李发表于1960年的长篇小说；long-shelved： 搁置已久的；prequel： 前传，前篇；Go Set a Watchman：《设立守望者》。
2. resemble： 类似，像。
3. embark on sth.： 开始做某事；a round of： 一连串的；publicity： 宣传。
4. 他们出现在文学节上，在那里他们招来的观众只有隔壁帐篷里电视大厨的四分之一多；他们出现在书店签售会上，以此尽可能多地卖出存货。garner： 获得，收集；a quarter of： 四分之一的；chef： 厨师；stock： 存货。
5. affable： 和蔼可亲的，友善的。
6. 正像塞缪尔·贝克特在《最糟糕，嗯》中写道：“都是老套，从无新意，屡试屡败。没关系。再试，再败。失败中有进步。”Samuel Beckett： 塞缪尔·贝克特（1906—1989），爱尔兰先锋派小说家、剧作家及诗人，20世纪最具影响力的荒诞剧作家；Worstward Ho：《最糟糕，嗯》，又译《每况愈下》，贝克特1983年散文集。
7. arise： 出现。
8. bear witness to： 证明。
9. abrupt： 突然的，唐突的；agent： 经纪人。
10. froze： 冻结，freeze的过去式。
11. be absent from： 缺席；Monroeville： 门罗维尔，美国阿拉巴马州一城市； recluse： 隐士，隐居者。
12. journalist： 新闻记者；withdraw from： 退出，离开。
13. co-operate with： 与……合作；literary biographer： 文学传记作家。
14. literary school： 文学派别；American South： 美国南方文学（Literature of the American South），指美国南北战争后出现在南方的一种严肃而带有悲剧性的文学流派。
15. 福克纳、田纳西·威廉斯以及弗兰纳里·奥康纳的作品，审视了美国南方恪守强烈的利己主义礼节以及为不公和暴力激情辩护的特征。Faulkner： 福克纳（1897—1962），美国作家，诺贝尔文学奖得主，代表作为《喧嚣和骚动》；Tennessee Williams： 田纳西·威廉斯（1911—1983），20世纪美国戏剧三大家之一，代表作为《欲望号街车》；Flannery O’Connor： 弗兰纳里·奥康纳（1925—1964），美国作家、散文家，常常以南方哥特风格写作；self-regarding： 利己主义的，自我维护的；decorum： 礼节；passionately： 强烈地，激昂地；injustice： 不公。
Harper Lee has died only a few months after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird’s long-shelved prequel， Go Set a Watchman （2015）.1 This article， originally published in 2011， asks why Harper Lee was so burdened by her early success.
The professional lives of most novelists closely resemble2 each other. They write a novel； it is published； they embark on a round of publicity.3 They appear at literary festivals， where they garner a quarter of the audience of some television chef in the tent next door， and at signings in bookshops， with the aim of signing as much stock as possible.4
Through it all， the novelist attempts to remain amusing， affable5 and patient. Three years later， he will publish another novel， and the whole experience repeats itself. As Samuel Beckett wrote in Worstward Ho： “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”6
For some writers， however， the need to try again， to fail again， hardly arises7. The extraordinary career—or perhaps non-career—of Harper Lee bears witness to8 a quite different way of conducting a writing life. She wrote one novel， an immediate classic and perhaps the best-selling novel of the 20th century， To Kill a Mockingbird. Since its publication in 1960， Lee has published no other book. A second novel， entitled The Long Goodbye， apparently came to an abrupt end on the day her agent，9 JP Lippincott， expressed an interest in her first. “Her pen froze10，” he said.
Lee， who turned 85 in 2011， has not been entirely absent from the public record since， and her neighbours in Monroeville， Alabama， wouldn’t agree that she is a recluse， either.11 Politely refusing to talk to journalists since 1964 is not the same thing as withdrawing from society.12 Since that has been her policy， her agreeing to co-operate with a new literary biographer，13 Marja Mills， who claims to tell the true story behind her years of silence， is important and surprising news. Will this biography tell the whole truth？ Can anyone ever really know why an author falls silent—even the author herself？
Lee came from one of the 20th century’s richest literary schools， the American South.14 Work by Faulkner， Tennessee Williams and Flannery O’Connor examined the South’s flavour of intense， self-regarding decorum and passionately defended injustice and violence.15 It is sometimes regarded as extraordinary that Nelle Harper Lee came from the same small town as another great Southern writer， Truman Capote16—that， indeed， they were neighbours as children. Some have gone as far as to speculate wildly that To Kill a Mockingbird might actually have been a near-collaboration between the pair， as Capote’s documentary study In Cold Blood seems to have been.17 Much more common is the writer who is effectively destroyed by a single huge success. The burden of fame and acclaim weighs down particularly on the creative faculties.31 Ian McEwan32 has spoken of feeling， when he embarks on promotion of his books， like “an employee of his own former self”.
The task of balancing the awareness of past success with the necessary task of producing new work is not one that every writer can achieve. And， perhaps， these single huge successes are much harder to deal with when they come early on in a writer’s career， before they have learnt to， in Kipling’s words， “treat the two impostors” of triumph and disaster “just the same”.33 It’s striking that out of the four novelists， for instance， who have won the Booker Prize in the last 40 years with a first novel， none has so far managed to write a successful follow-up.34
Lee has succeeded in protecting herself over the last half-century， and living a life which is of her choosing. In a rare statement recently， a letter to Oprah Winfrey’s magazine， she suggested how out-of-touch with modern life she has become： “In an abundant society where people have laptops， cellphones， iPods and minds like empty rooms， I still plod along with books.”35 That detachment36 is， clearly， necessary to her. It is the paradox of the novel that it could not have been written by someone in love with literary fame； that the fame it achieved and deserved killed off any prospect of a succeeding masterpiece.37
1. To Kill a Mockingbird：《杀死一只知更鸟》，哈珀·李发表于1960年的长篇小说；long-shelved： 搁置已久的；prequel： 前传，前篇；Go Set a Watchman：《设立守望者》。
2. resemble： 类似，像。
3. embark on sth.： 开始做某事；a round of： 一连串的；publicity： 宣传。
4. 他们出现在文学节上，在那里他们招来的观众只有隔壁帐篷里电视大厨的四分之一多；他们出现在书店签售会上，以此尽可能多地卖出存货。garner： 获得，收集；a quarter of： 四分之一的；chef： 厨师；stock： 存货。
5. affable： 和蔼可亲的，友善的。
6. 正像塞缪尔·贝克特在《最糟糕，嗯》中写道：“都是老套，从无新意，屡试屡败。没关系。再试，再败。失败中有进步。”Samuel Beckett： 塞缪尔·贝克特（1906—1989），爱尔兰先锋派小说家、剧作家及诗人，20世纪最具影响力的荒诞剧作家；Worstward Ho：《最糟糕，嗯》，又译《每况愈下》，贝克特1983年散文集。
7. arise： 出现。
8. bear witness to： 证明。
9. abrupt： 突然的，唐突的；agent： 经纪人。
10. froze： 冻结，freeze的过去式。
11. be absent from： 缺席；Monroeville： 门罗维尔，美国阿拉巴马州一城市； recluse： 隐士，隐居者。
12. journalist： 新闻记者；withdraw from： 退出，离开。
13. co-operate with： 与……合作；literary biographer： 文学传记作家。
14. literary school： 文学派别；American South： 美国南方文学（Literature of the American South），指美国南北战争后出现在南方的一种严肃而带有悲剧性的文学流派。
15. 福克纳、田纳西·威廉斯以及弗兰纳里·奥康纳的作品，审视了美国南方恪守强烈的利己主义礼节以及为不公和暴力激情辩护的特征。Faulkner： 福克纳（1897—1962），美国作家，诺贝尔文学奖得主，代表作为《喧嚣和骚动》；Tennessee Williams： 田纳西·威廉斯（1911—1983），20世纪美国戏剧三大家之一，代表作为《欲望号街车》；Flannery O’Connor： 弗兰纳里·奥康纳（1925—1964），美国作家、散文家，常常以南方哥特风格写作；self-regarding： 利己主义的，自我维护的；decorum： 礼节；passionately： 强烈地，激昂地；injustice： 不公。