I am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee by Charles J. ShieldsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a good biography of the then reclusive Harper Lee. It plots her early life up to To Kill a Mockingbird, dropping out of school and splitting her time between Monroeville and a humble NYC apartment. Interesting to me is how this work explores the real people used as bases for characters in the book, including her father for Atticus, herself for Scout, and Truman Capote for Dill, etc. This also explores the extensive researched and uncredited writing she apparently did for In Cold Blood, making it possibly the closest thing to a second novel during her lifetime. There are tantalizing suggestions of her working on what became Go Set a Watchman, although it is never mentioned by name or clearly identified.
This book also goes to task disputing claims in Capote, including that Harper was abused by her mother.
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