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    Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee
    Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee
    Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee
    Audiobook4 hours

    Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee

    Written by Wayne Flynt

    Narrated by Rosemary Benson and Mike Ortego

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    An indelible portrait of one of the most famous and beloved authors in the canon of American literature—a collection of letters between Harper Lee and one of her closest friends that reveals the famously private writer as never before, in her own words.

    The violent racism of the American South drove Wayne Flynt away from his home state of Alabama, but the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s classic novel about courage, community, and equality, inspired him to return in the early 1960s and craft a career documenting and teaching Alabama history. His writing resonated with many Alabamians, in particular three sisters: Louise, Alice, and Nelle Harper Lee. Beginning with their first meeting in 1983, a mutual respect and affection for the state’s history and literature matured into a deep friendship between two families who can trace their roots there back more than five generations.

    Flynt and Nelle Harper Lee began writing to one other while she was living in New York—heartfelt, insightful, and humorous letters in which they swapped stories, information, and opinions on topics both personal and professional: their families, books, Alabama history and social values, health concerns, and even their fears and accomplishments. Though their earliest missives began formally—""Dear Dr. Flynt""—as the years passed and their mutual admiration grew, their exchanges became more intimate and emotional, opening with ""Dear Friend"" and closing with ""I love you, Nelle."" Through their enduring correspondence, the Lees and the Flynts became completely immersed in each other’s lives.

    Beautifully written, intelligent, and telling, this remarkable compendium of their letters—a correspondence that lasted for a quarter century, from 1992 until Harper Lee’s death in February 2016—offers an incisive and compelling look into the mind, heart, and work of one of the most beloved authors in modern literary history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 2, 2017
    ISBN9780062674005
    Author

    Wayne Flynt

    WAYNE FLYNT is a southern historian and educator who retired after teaching for decades at Auburn University, where he directed more than sixty graduate programs. He has lectured at Sichuan University in China, at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the universities of Newcastle, Oxford, Cambridge, and Sussex in Great Britain, at the Franklin Roosevelt Center in The Netherlands, and at the University of Vienna. He is the author of fourteen books dealing with Southern politics, history, white poverty, and culture (religion, art, music, literature). His numerous awards include the Rembert Patrick Award for Florida History, the Lillian Smith Prize for Nonfiction from the Southern Regional Council, the Alabama Library Association Award for non-fiction (three times), the C. Vann Woodward/John Hope Franklin Prize by the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Award for Excellence in Writing, a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize (1989), and the Alabama Governor's Award for the Arts.

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    Reviews for Mockingbird Songs

    3.5/5

    19 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      While reading this book I wondered if Harper Lee would have approved of her letters with the author, Wayne Flynt, being published. This gave me a bit of an uncomfortable feeling. But I did find them interesting and I especially enjoyed finding out more about her sisters and their close , caring relationship.
    • 5/5
      This short, compelling book is just what the cover says: the story of a friendship. It is not an in-depth analysis of To Kill A Mockingbird, nor is it a biography of Harper Lee. Rather, it is a series of vignettes of the relationship between the author, a noted Alabama historian and writer, and Ms. Lee and her two sisters. Like many such books of letters, it is easy to read and hard to put down. Flynt fills in the space between letters with details about what is happening in Lee's life and in his own. Perhaps I can say it is a Southern thing, being from Alabama myself (though having left it, like so many), but these stories of family are what is important in the relationship and what holds it together. There is also a shared sense of disgust at certain Alabama things, such as Judge Roy Moore, circa 2006. Flynt, despite being a devout Baptist, shares Lee's liberal sentiments about most things.One reviewer said this book was more about Flynt than Lee, and given that he wrote it, I guess that is the case. Lee's letters are also filled with praise for Flynt's work, such as his history of Alabama in the 20th Century and another book about poor whites. This is not self-promotion on Flynt's part, however. Lee requested that Flynt repeat one presentation he had given on To Kill A Mockingbird as her eulogy--which he did, the day after her death at her Monroeville funeral.So what is to be gained by reading this book? Certainly some insight into Harper Lee's character. In the earlier letters, before eye problems and a stroke limited her writing, she writes with great wit and shows a wide knowledge of literature and history. Her cutting remarks about others, her unwanted biographers in particular, but also Truman Capote, are entertaining and insightful. The reader will also gain an appreciation for Ms. Lee's remarkable sisters, especially her older sister Alice, who died in 2014 at age 103, and practiced law in Monroeville until she was 100! Mostly, you will appreciate the value of friendship, even if conducted over great distances and with infrequent meetings. It is something to treasure and hold on to.Throughout the book, Flynt revels in letting Lee know just how popular and influential her book continues to be. I guess that is why there is an interest in books like this one. We want to know what kind of person created such a book that continues to teach us lessons to this day. It is a book you can read as a teenager and return to as an adult and still be awed by. It was created by a pretty feisty, extraordinary lady, who tried to abandon Alabama for New York City, but could never put that home behind her. Reading this book helps explain why. It is a simple, heartfelt monument to the author of To Kill a Mockingbird--one that even she would have appreciated.
    • 2/5
      Again, too much Wayne Flynt -a history professor who befriended Harper Lee late in her life. Terribly boring & repetitive letters providing very little insight or interest in even its Alabama setting. Some fun in Harper Lee's letters. Some interest in "seeing" her two sisters -- all three living to their very late 90s & 100. Worth reading just to discover that she adored NYCity, had an apartment there & probably spent most of her life there. Hooray, Nelle! (Harper is her middle name) These letters are from a period in her life when she was fading & spent a lot of time back home in Monroeville