Does Harper Lee really want to publish a sequel to 'To Kill a Mockingbird'? Some people doubt it.

Continuing the theme of old age being sigh-inducingly depresing...

Nearly two weeks after Harper Lee's publisher announced that the quiet, reclusive author was releasing a sequel to her famous,--and only--book, To Kill a Mockingbird, some experts have started questioning whether or not she truly wanted the sequel ever to be found, never mind released.

Now 88-years old, Lee has lived in an Alabaman nursing home in recent years after suffering a stroke in 2007. According to a story on Gawker, Lee's lawyer, Tonja Carter, once claimed that the novelist sometimes wasn't of sound mind when it came to signing documents.

Fast forward to 2014, and Carter apparently finds Lee's Mockingbird sequel in a pile of the author's papers. Go Set a Watchmen is set in the 1950s (Mockingbird took place during the 1930's Great Depression) and includes many of the same characters that appear in Mockingbird. But does Lee want it released? Carter claims she does.

Now tongues are wagging that Lee is being forced to publish a book she wanted hidden. The New York Times claims that the gossips in Monroeville, AL, swear Lee is not of sound mind and can't recognize old friends. But, as Florida State English professor Diane Roberts tells the AFP news wire, "There's just no way to judge it without talking to her [...] And no one's going to talk to her because even when she was in her best health, she was very private."

Publisher HarperCollins quotes Lee as saying she's "humbled and amazed" at the upcoming book release, while her lawyer, Carter, goes on the defensive in quotes to The New York Times, "[Lee] is a very strong, independent, and wise woman who should be enjoying the discovery of her long lost novel," Carter says. "Instead, she is having to defend her own credibility and decision-making."

But even Lee's former Methodist pastor, Rev. Thomas Butts has his doubts, telling the Times, "It is sort of strange it had not been found before."

When even a man of the cloth is raising an eyebrow in suspicion, something seems amiss.




Photo: HarperCollins