I have always loved Harper Lee. Many claim To Kill A Mockingbird was written by Truman Capote, but after reading it and In Cold Blood (and Breakfast at Tiffany's) I claim In Cold Blood was ghost written by Harper Lee. Capote had no legal background. Lee's father was a lawyer who defended cases similar to the one presented in To Kill a Mockingbird (and In Cold Blood). Lee vowed to never write another book again--in part because of the snub and insinuations she had not written her own book. Capote promised another novel that was even better than the previous one, but never produced anything but drivel. Why would Lee need to go with Capote when he was interviewing the criminals for In Cold Blood if she was not involved in writing the book? Truman was a jealous person as reflected in the biographies of him. He admittedly wanted to be in the spotlight. Alice (Lee's sister) stated he started the rumor, and I have no doubt he did. He probably thought by bringing Lee to write for him that he would get an award for writing a semi-true crime account (I have no doubt that idea was his). Instead, his book was interesting but not revolutionary enough to get him a prize.
Fast forward to 2007-- Harper Lee had a stroke and was moved in to a retirement facility. Her sister who was approaching 100 began having trouble being the gatekeeper any longer. In 2011, Alice Lee stopped practicing law and her only partner got unlimited control of Harper Lee. Tonja Carter, who had earlier allowed Harper Lee to confirm signing over her rights to Pinkus (a seedy, fly-by-night literary agent), suddenly decided the deal was not in Harper Lee's best interest and initiated a suit against Pinkus with one of the top literary lawyers in the country. Ironically, 2011 was the first time Tonja could have possibly come across Go Set a Watchman (the rough draft of to Kill a Mockingbird). However, at the trial in 2011, Harper Lee was basically declared incompetent of signing anything. This did not stop her new lawyer, Carter, from starting to give her a slew of papers to sign.
My theory is that Tonja had no problems with Pinkus holding the rights to To Kill a Mockingbird, until she found Go Set a Watchman. Upon the retirement of Alice from the law firm, Carter was now the sole lawyer in a firm who had one primary client, who was older and infirm. I am sure it did not take Carter long to figure out that she needed to secure a more stable income. Being a rough draft, if Carter published Go Set a Watchman it would be too close to To Kill a Mockingbird to qualify for its own copyright. Therefore, in order to publish the "new" novel, she had to get those rights back.
The trial deemed that Harper Lee was too infirm to make her own decisions in 2011 when she initially signed the agreement with Pinkus. How could she then be competent to make any decisions afterward?
Immediately after the court case, Lee started allowing things that she had never before allowed--her book is made digital, despite constantly stating she would never write again, she writes another book and wants to publish it! The problem is that it was Carter people were talking with--not Harper Lee. However, Carter made Lee more inaccessible than Alice did. No one was allowed to interview her and even friends were turned away. The state of Alabama was called in to investigate if Lee's rights were being abused. The problem is that the state of Alabama was not a uninterested party. If To Kill a Mockingbird brought tourism to their humble state, imagine what a sequel would do!
The state determined that Ms. Lee was aware her book Go Set a Watchman was going to be published and had agreed to it. The problem is that the publisher and Carter were promoting Go Set a Watchman as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird and not as the rough draft. And that was not how Harper Lee would have seen it. Of course Harper Lee agreed that To Kill a Mockingbird could be published!!! It already was. She probably couldn't figure out why people were making such a fuss. In her mind, Go Set a Watchman and To Kill a Mockingbird were one and the same--as a rough draft and final book would be in any author's mind. Add to this her infirmities, and I have no doubt she was not aware of the full extent of what HarperCollins and Carter schemed behind her back.
While I can forgive Carter for allowing the book to be published (if she was truly ignorant enough to think it was a sequel), I cannot forgive HarperCollins for promoting it as a sequel. They should have known it was the rough draft. I also cannot forgive Carter for creating a "foundation," naming herself one of two trustees of that foundation and then having Lee sign a will 8 days before her death (keeping in mind she had been declared infirm years earlier) that gives all her assets to that foundation. If Carter wanted to validate the will, it seems she would have had someone who was a long-time friend of Lee be the witness instead of a nursing home employee.
This sad story shows that no matter what you do during your lifetime as an author, someone will always be there to try to take advantage of you and steal your copyrights upon your death. Look at "Happy Birthday to You" or "Kookaburra." The copyright law is a good thing, but in many cases it harms authors. What happens to your work after you die should be your decision and not the decision of people around you when you are infirm. Personally, I want my children and descendants to benefit from any copyrights held at my death or I want my work to enter public domain if I have no descendants to benefit. Authors need to have both the right to their work and the right to push their work into public domain early if they desire, but publishing corporations hate that.
