Book shows personal side of ‘Mockingbird’ author Harper Lee

By JAY REEVES
Associated Press

HOMEWOOD, Ala. (AP) — A new book shows the personal side of the late “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee. Wayne Flynt’s new book “Afternoons with Harper Lee” is based on stories that Lee told during multiple visits with Flynt, a longtime Southern historian. Lee died in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 2016. Flynt says the public perception of Lee as a hermit shut off from the world is wrong. She didn’t do media interviews, and she guarded her privacy zealously. But Flynt says she was warm, kind and “deeply religious” in a way many people aren’t.