Momoe, your description of

Ramona — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 17:00:00 +0000

In reply to I know Monroeville, Alabama

Momoe, your description of those Alabama "ladies" is so spot on! Much of that same attitude extended up north to Michigan's farthest reaches. Liberation was a long time coming, and those women were fine with that.

I love southern writers, and you're right--they do have a distinct writing style. (Some of my favorites: Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Lee Smith, Kaye Gibbons, Bobbie Ann Mason, Dorothy Allison, Sue Monk Kidd, and of course, Flannery O'Connor. And the males: Shelby Foote, Reynolds Price, Walker Percy, Pat Conroy, and of course, Faulkner.)

Harper Lee led a pretty sophisticated life outside of Alabama, and didn't write TKAM until she was in her 30s. Some southern women writers have written that they had to go away from the south in order to see it as it really is.

But you're right. She had a strong sense of privacy and she should have been entitled to it.

I know Monroeville, Alabama

trkingmomoe — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 16:10:16 +0000

In reply to Harper Lee: You Don’t Know Me

I know Monroeville, Alabama very well. They built a big outlet Mall there in the 1980's and the town grew. I tend to believe Mills is telling the truth. I believe I read somewhere that people who Nelli wrote to kept their letters and the language and form in those letters match with the style of the book. Those letters came available after these people passed away. People in that part of the country has a very distinct way of story telling. The older ones had a set of social norms that would put them in that area only. Nelli was the product of that society.

My children and I sometimes see someone on TV that we can say "boy you can tell they are from lower Alabama." I knew women who would not register to vote because their husbands said no. Some fathers and husbands forbid their daughters and wives from voting in that part of the country. It was not lady like to be on a jury. It was not lady like to draw attention to yourself. You went to the back door because the front door was only for special guest. Sometimes the front door was called the Christmas door or Holiday door. There would always be a clean apron handy because if someone came to the door, a lady would quickly put on the clean apron. I will probably think things all day that I remember older people telling me. That kind of life style is all but gone there now.

Nelli just didn't want her life pried into.

dagblog - Comments for "Harper Lee: You Don’t Know Me"

Momoe, your description of

I know Monroeville, Alabama