If She's Talking She Can't Be Dead

Sweet Jesus, I thought Harper Lee had died years ago.

After she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, she retreated into privacy and never did write another novel. Or at least, none that we know of.

I associate her prose with a long gone era, and I presumed that like authors of her time, she had passed on. As it turns out, Ms. Lee is alive and well and working with her biographer.

According to reports, Marja Mills has penned what must be considered an authorized telling of Harper Lee's life. Topics will include Ms. Lee's experiences growing up in the American South during the Jim Crow era, which will give scholars a chance to analyze how her past influenced her work. Family and friends are weighing in as well, to paint a complete picture of a somewhat reclusive figure.

Penguin has picked up the book and plans to release it, they say, but no date has been given.

Are they maybe waiting for the celebrated author to die so that they can capitalize on the publicity surrounding her passing? That's when hundreds of others like me will shake our heads and mumble, "I thought she died years ago."

And then we'll all run out to buy the book to see what she was doing when we thought she was resting in peace.