Transcript of interview with Harper Lee by WQXR host Roy Newquist, 1964.

Published February 24, 2106.

Audio may be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfsFeMRF7CU

Edited transcription of the full interview is very interesting from a research

perspective and can be found at:
http://www.thebluegrassspecial.com/archive/2010/july10/harper-lee-interview.php

INTERVIEW:

Lee: Roy, I was born in a little town called Monroeville, Alabama, on April 28, Comment [AM1]: bawn

1926.

[Audio pauses for about 15 seconds and then the interviewer introduces the piece.]

What was your reaction to the success of To Kill a Mockingbird? I've often
wondered how an author who wrote what became an immediate smash both Comment [AM2]: suh-PRAHZ
critically and as far as sales were concerns, would react. Comment [AM3]: SHEE-uh
Comment [AM4]: HUHM-nis
Lee: Well, my reaction to it was not one of surprise. It was one of sheer numbness. Comment [AM5]: lahk
Comment [AM6]: OH-vuh
Comment [AM7]: Almost 2 syllables HEH-uhd
It was like being hit over the head and knocked cold. It was something I never Comment [AM8]: /l/ is very rounded, almost a
/w/
Comment [AM9]: ah
Comment [AM10]: NEH-vah
expected to, ah, but I never expected the book would sell in the first place. I was
Comment [AM11]: ah
Comment [AM12]: vowel remains EH no
change
hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers, but I was hoping Comment [AM13]: fahst

Comment [AM14]: ree-VYU-uz

that maybe somebody might like it well enough to give me some encouragement Comment [AM15]: SUHM-buh-dih
Comment [AM16]: Here she does not make the
vowel change!
Comment [AM17]: In-CAH-ridg-mint
about it. Some public encouragement.

They did do that! I think all the encouragement

Lee: Yes. Comment [AM18]: Almost 2 syllables YEH-us

Any one writer could see for a lifetime. What have you been working on since
To Kill a Mockingbird appeared?

Lee: Uh, I'm working on another novel, and like Mockingbird, it goes very slowly. Comment [AM19]: WEH-kin
Comment [AM20]: Uh-NUH-thuh
Comment [AM21]: SLOH-lih

Uh, I'm a slow worker I'm a, ah, I think, a steady worker. You know, so many Comment [AM22]: WERK-uh
Comment [AM23]: Almost 3 syllables STEH-uh-
dih

writers don't like to write. Uh, I think that that's their chief complaint. They hate to Comment [AM24]: Almost 3 syllables but I
sound stays unchanged
Comment [AM25]: No change here!

write; uh, they must, they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist what he Comment [AM26]: AH-tist
Comment [AM27]: Glides right past this word

is, but they really don't enjoy sitting down and trying to turn a thought into a

reasonable sentence. But I do, I like to write. And sometimes I'm afraid that I like Comment [AM28]: SEN-ince (kind of skips the
t!)

it too much because when I get into work I don't want to leave it. And as a result Comment [AM29]: Almost an oy vowel

Comment [AM30]: Days is almost 2 syllables

and the word and is de-emphasized, swiftly glossed
over.
I'll go for days and days and days without leaving a house, my house, wherever I
Comment [AM31]: mah
Comment [AM32]: WHEH-uh-eh-vuh ah (word I
is almost lost)
am. I just go out long enough to get papers and get some food and that'll be it. It's Comment [AM33]: T at end of word is almost
lost
Comment [AM34]: PAY-puhz
Comment [AM35]: Runs together like one word
strange. emphasizing it
To Kill a Mockingbird was turned into what I thought was an unusually fine
motion picture with much of the integrity of the book held. How did you feel
about it?

Lee: I felt the very same way, Roy. As a matter of fact, I uh, have nothing but Comment [AM36]: Almost one word.
Comment [AM37]: NUH-thin (no ing ending)

gratitude to the people who made the film. It was a most unusual experience. I, I Comment [AM38]: /l/ sound tends toward /w/

think even, of course, I'm no judge, and the only film I've ever seen being made Comment [AM39]: Uh-KAWS
Comment [AM40]: Elongated vowel

was Mockingbird, but there was an aura of feeling on the set. I went out and looked Comment [AM41]: Barely any vowel sound and
no r at all
Comment [AM42]: keeps eh sound

at them filming a little of it, there was a feeling of such kindness, or such, such it Comment [AM43]: KAHND-nis (barely says /d/)

seemed to me to be such respect, for the material that they were working with. Of Comment [AM44]: Almost 3 syllables reh-SPEH-
uhkt

course I was delighted; I was touched, I was happy, I was exceedingly grateful.

But, it seemed to permeate everyone who had anything to do with the film, from

the director, from Greg Peck, from, uh, the producer down to the man who Comment [AM45]: Pruh-DYUS-uh

designed the sets, to the peripheral characters, and, the, uh, the actors who were Comment [AM46]: SEH-uts

Comment [AM47]: ACT-uz

playing the smaller parts. Comment [AM48]: SMAWL-uh PAHTS

One question that I wanted to ask concerns the South as a whole. Why is it
that such a disproportionate share of our fine fiction, of our most sensitive
fiction springs from writers who were born and reared in the South?

Lee: Roy, first of all you have to consider, uh, who Southerners are. We are a Comment [AM49]: KUHN-si-duh
Comment [AM50]: SUH-thuh-nuhz AH

mixture of Celtic. We run high to Celtic influence. We are, uh, mostly Irish, Comment [AM51]: MIHKS-chuh
Comment [AM52]: De-emphasized
Comment [AM53]: HAH and really lengthened

Scottish, English, Welch. We, um, grew up in an agricultural society mainly. Uh, Comment [AM54]: suh-SAI-uh-tih

we, the tradition of the South is not urban. It is not industrial, or wasn't, at least our

heritage is not such. Um, I think we are a region of storytellers naturally, just by Comment [AM55]: No changes made keeps EE
sound very clear.
Comment [AM56]: NACH-ruh-lih

our, uh, tribal instincts, just from our tribal instincts. We, um, did not have the Comment [AM57]: 2 syllables OW-uh
Comment [AM58]: Keeps first vowel unchanged
and very emphasized

pleasures of, uh, the theater, of the dance, or of motion pictures when they came Comment [AM59]: PLEH-juhs
Comment [AM60]: THEE-uh-duh
Comment [AM61]: Almost 2 syllables
Comment [AM62]: WHIN
along. We simply entertained each other by talking.
Comment [AM63]: SIHM-plih
Comment [AM64]: UH-thuh
Comment [AM65]: Almost 3 syllables TAW-uh-
It's, um, quite a thing, if you've never gone or you've never known a southern small king
Comment [AM66]: NEH-vuh

town. The people there are not particularly, uh, sophisticated, of course. Uh, they're Comment [AM67]: THEY-uh

not worldly wise in any way. But they tell you a story every time you see one. Uh, Comment [AM68]: STAW-ri

we, are, we're oral types-we talk. Comment [AM69]: No change

Comment [AM70]: TAWK

Uh, and another thing I've noticed about people at home, as opposed, to, say people
in small town New England, we have uh, rather more humor about us. We're not Comment [AM71]: Liquid /u/ NYOO
Comment [AM72]: RAH-thuh
Comment [AM73]: Very light on end /r/ souds

taciturn we are not wry we are not, um, laconic. We, um, our whole society is

geared to, um, talk rather than to uh, I mean we don't we work hard, of course, Comment [AM74]: TAWK RAH-thuh

but we do it in a different way. We work in order to, in order not to work. Um, any Comment [AM75]: work is leaning toward an
OY sound WOYK

time spent on business is more or less time wasted, but you have to do it in order to Comment [AM76]: TAHM
Comment [AM77]: But no change here!

be able to hunt and fish and, uh, gossip. No, but I think that this heritage of, of our,

first of all our ethnic background, then the absence of so much to do in the sense of Comment [AM78]: FIRS-uv-awl

to go somewhere or see something. We can't go to see a play; we can't go to a, a Comment [AM79]: SUHM-wheh-uh

big league baseball game when we want to. We have had to entertain ourselves for

years. That was my childhood: I, uh, If I went to a film once a month, uh, that was

pretty wonderful for me, and for all children like me. We had to use our own Comment [AM80]: WUHND-uh-fuhl

devices for our play, for our entertainment. We didn't have much money. Nobody

had any money. Uh, we didn't have many toys to play with, nothing was done for Comment [AM81]: ee at end of words
becomes /ih/
Comment [AM82]: Voiced /th/ sound at end of
word
us, so the result was that we lived in our imaginations most of the time. We, um,
devised; we were readers, we would, and we would transfer everything that we had

seen on the printed page to the backyard in high forms of drama.

Did you never play Tarzan when you were a child? Or did you ever go to the Comment [AM83]: DIHJ-oo
Comment [AM84]: DIHJ-oo (Continues throught
this entire paragraph)

jungle or refight the battle of Gettysburg in some form or fashion? We did. Uh, did Comment [AM85]: No change here.
Comment [AM86]: Almost 2 syllables DIH-uhd

you ever live in a tree house, did you ever find the whole world in the branches of

a chinaberry tree? But, I think that that kind of life naturally produces, um, more Comment [AM87]: pruh-DYOO-sehz

writers than, say, living on 82nd Street in New York City. In small town life and in Comment [AM88]: Very emphasized r sounds
and the i does not change at all.
Comment [AM89]: NYOO-yaw-uk SIH-dih

rural life one knows one's neighbors. Not only does one know everything about Comment [AM90]: life is not changed! And
very emphasized as if she is trying to be clear.
Comment [AM91]: NEH-uh-buhz

one's neighbor, but one knows everything about that neighbor's life from the time

they came to the country even. People are predictable to each other simply by Comment [AM92]: UH-thuh

family characteristics. Uh, Life is slower there. We have more chance to look Comment [AM93]: SLOH-uh THEH-uh

around and absorb what we see. We're not in such a hurry that we can't do anything Comment [AM94]: b very light. Almost p
Comment [AM95]: HUH-rih

except go to the office, and come home, and have a drink, and settle down, and Comment [AM96]: AW-fihss

collapse for the evening.

My final question concerned Ms. Lee's ultimate ambitions as a writer.

Lee: Well my objectives are very limited. I think I'm going to do the best I can

with the uh talent God gave me I suppose. I would like to be the chronicler of Comment [AM97]: KRAH-nih-kluh

something that I think is going down the drain very swiftly, and that is small town Comment [AM98]: SWIHF-tlih
Comment [AM99]: SMAWL

middle class Southern life as opposed to the gothic, as opposed to Tobacco Road, Comment [AM100]: Tuh-BA-kuh

as opposed to um, uh, plantation life, that kind of thing. There is something Comment [AM101]: KAHND

universal in it, there is something decent to be said for it and there is something to

lament when it goes, and it's going. It is passing. In other words, all I want to be is Comment [AM102]: luh-MEH-uhnt

the Jane Austen of South Alabama. Comment [AM103]: a-luh-BA-uh-muh