On October 21st, THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER appeared in bookstores and on electronic devices to great anticipation after a tortuous and winding path to publication.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a timeless classic. Inspired by Harper Lee’s upbringing in Monroeville, Alabama, the novel earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and continues to be widely taught in US middle schools and high schools. I read it every few years and proudly possess a signed copy of the 40th anniversary edition purchased from the bookstore in Lee’s hometown. When my children and grandchildren were assigned to read the book, I enjoyed our discussions, although I must sadly acknowledge that their passion for it was not as strong as mine. Apparently, their tastes seemed to drift more towards literature of their generations, like Harry Potter.

"THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER is a glimpse of magnificent talent. These stories and essays make clear that, in the decades after MOCKINGBIRD, Harper Lee was satisfied with her accomplishments even if her adoring fans never got from her the career they expected."

Despite the popularity of MOCKINGBIRD, Lee remained an enigmatic and little-known literary figure. The book became an equally beloved film in 1962. Even now, decades after its theatrical release, Gregory Peck is recalled fondly for his Academy Award-winning role as Atticus Finch. In 2018, the novel was adapted as a Broadway play but not without some controversy as it was modified to make it more compatible with contemporary times. I don’t know what Lee’s response to those changes would have been as she passed away two years earlier.

In the years following MOCKINGBIRD’s release, there was hope that Lee would pen additional books. But it was not to be. Finally, in 2015, her publisher and family announced that a sequel had been discovered. GO SET A WATCHMAN was published to much publicity and fanfare. It set records for the greatest number of books sold in one day but also broke the hearts of many of Lee’s fans. It turned out to be an unpublished manuscript that was probably a first draft of MOCKINGBIRD. It might have been intended as a sequel, but it wasn’t worthy of the lofty standards that readers set for her.

After her death, Lee’s family began to inventory her estate and papers. In her New York apartment, they discovered a treasure trove of material. The first portion of THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER consists of short stories written before MOCKINGBIRD. The fact that none of them ever saw publication might say something about their quality. In the first few, Lee wrote in the style of her novel, using a narrator to set the scene and using her own early life experiences as the basis for these tales. Some of the later stories take place in New York City where she resided at the time of MOCKINGBIRD's release. The most interesting of these pieces are set in her Alabama hometown. Many of the characters and themes serve as models for the book.

The remainder of the collection is comprised of essays that were completed after Lee finished MOCKINGBIRD. One written for the American Film Institute describes her visit to the set of the film production and how the actors, including Gregory Peck, looked like her own vision of the characters. She was grateful that Peck did not attempt to adopt a southern accent for the role. In an introduction for the Book of the Month Club’s publication of IN COLD BLOOD, Lee wrote about her friend and his epic novel set in Kansas: “Truman Capote gave Kansas his best.” And in a 2006 letter to Oprah Winfrey, Lee said that she avoided electronic reading devices: “I still plod along with books,” she observed, “I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.”

THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER is a glimpse of magnificent talent. These stories and essays make clear that, in the decades after MOCKINGBIRD, Harper Lee was satisfied with her accomplishments even if her adoring fans never got from her the career they expected.