London (TAN): A letter from To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee has revealed her anger at the people of her hometown for “trying to turn (her) into a tourist attraction like Graceland or Elvis”, a report in The Guardian says.
The letter, which Lee wrote to old friend Charles Weldon Carruth in 1993, was sold by an auction house here as part of a collection of documents for GBP 19,158.
Lee wrote the letter from her hometown Monroeville, Alabama, on which was based the fictional Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird. She writes: “…what was once a tiny town of considerable character is now six times its size and populated by appalling people.”
She vents her displeasure at how the local people were raising money to restore the town’s old courthouse and make it a tourist attraction. The courthouse had served as Lee’s inspiration for the book’s courthouse.
Lee says she “nearly had a fit” seeing a billboard showing the courthouse and featuring a mockingbird picture at an exit to the interstate freeway. She says it was “in indescribable taste” and “a fraud on the public”.
“The hypocrites in charge, not a one of whom I know, say they are doing this to ‘honour’ me. What they are doing is trying to drown me in their own bad taste, and are embarrassing me beyond endurance,” the report quotes from Lee’s letter.
In 2013, Lee had sued the local museum accusing it of exploiting her fame without compensating her, the report added.
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