It’s the elephant in the room when discussing To Kill A Mockingbird: Although Harper Lee’s name is emblazoned on the cover, it was her famous childhood friend, Truman Capote, who really penned the classic.
Unfortunately for literary conspiracy buffs, the long-lasting theory is nothing but a rumor. Harper Lee is the author her own novel and yet the rumor persists. But why? Where did it even come from?
One reason for the rumor’ stickiness is Harper Lee’s own legacy. Mockingbird has remained Lee’s only published novel for nearly 60 years (until the long-awaited Go Set a Watchmen hits bookshelves on July 13, 2015—and that has created a whole different controversy). How could a Pulitzer Prize-winning author only write one novel in her entire career? Could Mockingbird be a fluke, some kind of one-hit-wonder? That would seem highly unlikely. In contrast, Capote’s literary career was far more prolific.
And while Lee was “branded a literary hermit,” Capote was her polar opposite, socializing among celebrities and becoming a “literary celebrity” himself. Since Lee was silent on the subject, never directly addressing it, the rumor seemed to balloon bigger and bigger. Lee’s reclusiveness caused a lot of speculation. Was she hiding something? Maybe she was ashamed that she didn’t write the book all by herself? Meanwhile Capote rose to literary stardom, completely embracing his place in the literary world.
It’s important to understand the reception to To Kill A Mockingbird at the time it was published; it was 1960’s absolute smash hit, an instant critical and financial success. In 1963 it was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film of the same name. Today, Mockingbird, remains one of the best-selling novels of all time, So much interest and acclaim was thrown onto Harper Lee. According to Lee’s sister Alice, Capote was jealous of Harper at the time because she won a Pulitzer and he didn’t. Her awards rubbed him the wrong way, especially considering she didn’t appreciate her fame at all. She rejected it entirely, refusing to speak to the press. As Capote continued to write and publish, his dear friend became reclusive for the remainder of her life, and their friendship ultimately dissolved.
Capote also had a reputation for being boastful and narcissistic. He was a social butterfly with a big ego who loved attention of all kinds and had found no shame in self-promotion. It was known among friends that he wanted desperately to win The National Book Award and the Pulitzer, neither of which he ever won. It wouldn’t be surprising then, given his jealousy of To Kill A Mockingbird, that Capote entertained the rumors and was never on record denying them.
Retired history professor Dr. Wayne Flint explained on a 2006 episode of All Things Considered, however, that a letter written in 1960 from Capote to his aunt can help squash the rumor once and for all. Capote writes about Lee’s progress on a novel she is working on. He writes that he read the manuscript, liked it very much, and thought that Lee had talent. Nowhere in the letter does he mention helping her or being involved in the writing of the classic in any way. Despite this, and the fact that the voice of the author in To Kill a Mockingbird is totally different from Capote’s work, the unfortunate rumor lives on.
