Free Food for Millionaires

Article by Kim Powers

Enter to win this book for your club

As I've been fascinated with the "twin" stories of Harper Lee and Truman Capote ever since I first saw the movie of To Kill a Mockingbird, and found out the character of Dill Harris was based on Truman. Add to that the bizarre fact of Truman taking Harper (whom I call Nelle in my book, her real first name) to Kansas with him to work on In Cold Blood, and I thought I had cornered the market on something no one but their most obsessive fans knew.

Turns out there are a lot of Harper Lee and Truman Capote fans.

When I started what ultimately became Capote in Kansas, I knew I didn't want to approach their story as biography, or narrative nonfiction. I wanted to set my imagination to the task of bringing them alive, and get into their heads in the way a standard biography couldn't. But the book had to be more than just a series of connected anecdotes. I needed a plot, a machine, to tie it all together. That's how I came up with device of Truman making his first call to Harper Lee in decades, in what will turn out to be the last year of his life. The ghosts of the murdered Clutters are foiling his sleep; have they been coming to Harper as well? Turns out they have. That "haunting" gave me a means to get into their heads in the imaginative way I wanted to - and to chase my obsession with story-telling and imagination and childhood at the same time.

I started Capote in Kansas as I was waiting for my first book, a memoir called The History of Swimming, about my relationship with my troubled twin brother, to hit bookstores. Surprisingly, Capotebecame extremely personal to me, almost like an extension of my memoir: especially in writing about Harper's struggles with writing, how her grief over the death of her older brother Ed never left her (and found its way into the character of Jem.) Those are all things I was personally dealing with, too-as well as thinking a lot about getting older, about what my "legacy" would be. As I was getting older, why was I spending so much time and memory back in my childhood, where things seemed both easier, and scarier. All those things found their way into Capote in Kansas.

I know I've done some risky, even controversial: I've taken what I know of the life of Harper Lee, and turned it into fiction, even using her real name. A made-up name just wouldn't have the same power. (Truman was less risky; he was already dead, and besides, he loved the "fictions" people created about him.) Into some known facts, I've thrown in a crazy mix of dreams and ghosts - I even have Harper Lee writing letters to her dead brother! I think I felt - as I'm sure so many of you do - that I knew her after Mockingbird, and I wanted to hear more from her, and about her. Who is the reclusive enigma behind that magnificent book? Did she in fact write it all? I wanted to try and answer those things for myself-for everyone.

That's what it all came down to: this process that some might call an act of thievery, was really an act of love. I loved To Kill a Mockingbird so much, I wanted to live inside it and figure out how it came to be. That's what I've tried to do with Capote in Kansas - which probably should have been called Lee in Alabama. It's strange to say, but I may have stolen Harper Lee's life, but only because she first stole my heart.

Happy Reading,

Author Bio

Article by Nicole Seitz

Enter to win this book for your club

About The Spirit of Sweetgrass

The Spirit of Sweetgrassis about Essie Mae Laveau Jenkins, a 78-year-old sweetgrass basket maker who sits on the side of Hwy. 17 in the company of her deceased husband, Daddy Jim. Inspired by her Auntie Leona, Essie Mae finally discovers her calling in life and weaves powerful "love baskets," praying fervently over them to affect the lives of those who visit her roadside stand. When she's faced with losing her home, her stand, and being put into a nursing home, Daddy Jim talks her into coming on up to Heaven to meet sweet Jesus, something she's always wanted to do. Once there, she reunites with Gullahs and African ancestors; but soon, her heavenly peace is disrupted. Now Essie Mae, who once felt powerless and invisible, must find the strength within her to keep her South Carolina family from falling apart.

The origin of The Spirit of Sweetgrass

When I was expecting my second child, I was struck with the idea forThe Spirit of Sweetgrasswhile driving home past the quaint roadside stands of Mount Pleasant sweetgrass basket makers. It came unexpectedly and with such force that I found a scrap of paper and begin writing while driving. (Do not attempt this at home.) After initial research I remember waking the next morning at 4:00 AM with the voice of my narrator, Essie Mae, coming through loud and clear.

A month after beginningThe Spirit of Sweetgrass, I went on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy and tried to settle in to what might be a very long couple of months. I was unable to write, but I reveled in the stories and loving care of a Lowcountry basket weaver who was taking care of me and my young daughter. Just two weeks later, my son was born, small but healthy. We both nearly lost our lives, and the circumstances of his birth left me awed and grateful for the blessings of a second chance at life and a healthy child. I soon found the voice of Essie Mae louder and more persistent than ever, and I'd wake in the middle of the night to put the story on paper--that of Heaven and family ties.

I had no idea the importance of this story until I began receiving feedback from readers. One woman came to me in tears and said Essie Mae reminded her so much of the sweet woman who raised her. Another said she finished my book one day and the next day, her mother passed away. She said she'd never been able to imagine heaven before reading The Spirit of Sweetgrass but could now imagine her mother in a better place. It's my amazing readers who give true meaning to this book. It's my hope that you'll be touched and inspired as I have been by Essie Mae's story. Enjoy.

Nicole would be delighted to call-in to your book group via speakerphone Email her to set up a chat.

This book was my attempt at macabre elegance, a whimsically ghoulish murder mystery set within the conventions of Victorian England. Within it are all the elements I love best in fiction: a historical setting, a female narrator who is sometimes oblivious to her own faults, a simmering whiff of sexual tension, and a twisty, unpredictable unknotting of mysterious circumstances. The specific story itself was suggested when I read a single line in a book about poisons. It gave a brief, tantalizing mention of a murderer whose ingenious method inspired me to play every author's favorite game, "What if..." In tracing the answers, I wrote Silent in the Grave.

Author Bio