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Why Harper Lee Never Finished Writing Her True-Crime Book

WUNC | By Frank Stasio,
Grant Holub-Moorman
Published July 28, 2020 at 11:50 AM EDT

What lessons can the now-deceased Harper Lee teach a modern-day investigative journalist? Writer Casey Cep retraced Lee’s footsteps to a small town in Alabama to find out. She reopened a 1970s murder case that Lee had once obsessively followed: a rural preacher named Reverend Willie Maxwell who was accused of killing five of his family members for insurance money.

Host Frank Stasio talks with writer Casey Cep about her book 'Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and The Last Trial of Harper Lee.'Cep implanted herself in Coosa County and set out to retrace Maxwell’s trial. Like Lee, Cep interviewed townspeople about the case, but she also sought out anecdotes about Harper Lee herself.

Casey Cep is an investigative journalist and the author of "Furious Hours".
Credit Kathryn Shulz
Casey Cep is an investigative journalist and the author of "Furious Hours".

Who was the brilliant and private woman behind“To Kill A Mockingbird,” and what were her personal politics and literary ideals?

Host Frank Stasio talks with Casey Cep about her book “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and The Last Trial of Harper Lee” (Knopf/ 2019) which contextualizes Maxwell’s trial with modern sensibilities and brings to light new information about Harper Lee and her miserable perfectionism. Cep will speak at The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 14 and at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill Thursday, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m.

 

Mourners gather in front of the House of Hutchinson Funeral Home after flee- ing the chapel where the Reverend Willie Maxwell was shot to death during the funeral of Shirley Ann Ellington.
/ Alexander City Outlook
Mourners gather in front of the House of Hutchinson Funeral Home after flee- ing the chapel where the Reverend Willie Maxwell was shot to death during the funeral of Shirley Ann Ellington.
Harper, Alice, and Louise: the three Lee sisters together at the Alabama History and Heritage Festival in Eufaula in 1983.
/ The Eufala Tribune
Harper, Alice, and Louise: the three Lee sisters together at the Alabama History and Heritage Festival in Eufaula in 1983.
Nelle Harper Lee in the offices of the Rammer-Jammer during her time as a student at the University of Alabama.
The University of Alabama Special Libraries Collection /
Nelle Harper Lee in the offices of the Rammer-Jammer during her time as a student at the University of Alabama.
National headlines from the murder of the accused Baptist Reverend Maxwell used voodoo as a derogatory association.
Casey Cep /
National headlines from the murder of the accused Baptist Reverend Maxwell used voodoo as a derogatory association.
A young Tom Radney, at work in his law office.
Courtesy of the Radney family. /
A young Tom Radney, at work in his law office.

Copyright 2020 North Carolina Public Radio
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
Grant Holub-Moorman
Grant Holub-Moorman is a producer for The State of Things, WUNC's daily, live talk show that features the issues, personalities and places of North Carolina.
See stories by Grant Holub-Moorman