Riot Headline The Best Books of 2024
Humor

10 Unexpected Facts from the New Harper Lee Biography

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Liberty Hardy

Senior Contributing Editor

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

Last week, Dwight Garner reviewed The Mockingbird Next Door, and discussed how he was saddened by what he learned about the reclusive Pulitzer-winning octogenarian, such as the facts that she eats Burger King salads and likes to feed ducks. So we wanted to share ten things that we learned about Harper Lee that we think are awesome.

1. Every year, she goes on vacation to Las Vegas with Stan Lee, Sara Lee and Ang Lee. (She won Ang’s first Academy Award statue off him in a game of poker.)

2. She was a guest on Anthony Bourdain’s show, No Reservations, where she hunted, killed, and cooked a mockingbird for the host.

3. She can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs.

4. She once spit on Richard Ford at a party.*

5. Her nickname for Truman Capote was “Spuds Lonigan.”

6. The original title of “To Kill a Mockingbird” was “God, People Can Be Such Assholes.”

7. She, not Daniel Handler, is actually Lemony Snicket.

8. She once wrestled under the name “Atticus Pinch.”

9. She is Hulk Hogan’s godmother. (He has a tattoo on his left buttock that says “I Love Boo.”)

10. She always checks holes in trees for treasure. (She has found such things as a Fabergé egg, a six-pack of Crystal Pepsi, a copy of “Valley of the Dolls,” and eight thousand copies of the E.T. Atari video game.)

 

*Okay, no, she didn’t. But this really did happen!

Save