A biography of a book that was never actually written. Actually also the biography of at least two people who never met but nonetheless interacted strongly, one an alleged multiple murderer and one a notable novelist.

Harper Lee returned to the area where she grew up to research and study the case of Willie Maxwell, a sometime preacher and woodsman who was himself murdered at the funeral of the woman he himself was strongly suspected of murdering – and whose murderer walked free despite his confession and the abundant eye witnesses. It’s a compelling story, and it’s a tragedy that Lee never in fact published the book she devoted years to creating.

It’s easy to hear the echoes of In Cold Blood, both in Lee’s endeavours and in this text. It’s gripping and fast-paced, and inhabits the Alabama land where the action occurs just as much as Capote inhabited rural Kansas. It’s amazing that such an engaging book can be constructed from events that are essentially lacking in any conclusions: we don’t know Maxwell’s guilt for sure, nor Lee’s intentions of how to tell the story, so the book rests entirely on process and location, and very much succeeds.

4/5. Finished Tuesday 29 March, 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)