The novel sold 30 million copies and earned Lee huge critical acclaim, winning her a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and thrusting her into an avalanche of publicity. The family is in mourning and there will be a private funeral service in the upcoming days, as she had requested.
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A few dozen family members gathered Saturday at the First United Methodist Church in Monroeville, Alabama to hear a eulogy by her longtime friend and history professor, Wayne Flint.
It was a 2006 speech, entitled, ‘Atticus inside ourselves, ‘ that he gave as a tribute when Lee won the Birmingham Pledge Foundation Award for racial justice.
Publisher HarperCollins said Lee was not only a brilliant writer, but also “an extraordinary woman of great joyfulness, humility and kindness” who lived as she wanted – “in private – surrounded by books and the people who loved her”.
“You wish somebody like Lee could go on forever and be this lifelong legend”, said Spencer Madrie, owner of the Ol’ Curiosities & Book Shoppe in the town.
Harper Lee is widely considered one of the greatest American novelists of all time.
“Harper Lee was ahead of her time and her masterpiece “To Kill a Mockingbird” prodded America to catch up with her”, he said. Black bows adorned the doors of the old courthouse in Monroeville where Lee as a child, like her literary creation Scout Finch, would peer down from the balcony as her lawyer father tried his cases in the courtroom.
Lee’s state of mind would become an issue past year when plans were announced to publish “Go Set a Watchman”. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “Lee had a way of telling stories that does have an influence and resonates with so many Americans”.
The enormous success of the film version of the novel, released in 1962 with Gregory Peck starring the role of Atticus Finch, a lawyer from a small town in the South who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, only added to Lee’s fame and fanned the expectations for her next novel.
On Friday, U.S. political and cultural figures mourned Lee’s death, crediting her with helping to promote tolerance and quoting her with admiration in social media and formal statements.
Flynt and Randall said they had recently visited Lee at the Monroeville assisted living facility where she had lived for several years because of declining health. She is returning home to the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, from NY, where she works, to visit her 72-year-old father battling rheumatoid arthritis and other ills. ‘She changed the world with ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’.
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“I guess it’s just sparked a new generation of people who are interested in Harper Lee”. “Rest in peace, Harper Lee”, he posted.
