Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields

Shields describes this as a portrait of Harper Lee - not a biography. This is largely due to the fact that Lee has refused to do any interviews for years. Instead he has explored the worlds she inhabited (Monroeville, Alabama and NYC) and the people she knew, both friends and acquaintances, to create the life she was likely to have lived. Her relationship with Truman Capote is explored as are possible reasons that there was never a second book. In the end all the reader really knows is that she is an independent minded, shy person who never got over the surprise of writing what many consider to be the perfect novel.