I was sorry to hear the news that Ms. Lee has passed away. That set me thinking again about her work. I'm glad that we had the chance to publish a blog symposium about Go Set a Watchman last summer. (And I have some other thoughts about Go Set a Watchman -- and Ms. Lee's character's thoughts about constitutional law -- here.)
I look forward to more discussion in the coming days about her role in the Civil Rights Movement as our nation struggled to rise out of Jim Crow -- and about her role as a chronicler of the conflicts around the Movement in Alabama.
Maybe this is the time I should mention that I taught a case in trusts and estates earlier this spring about a white man who left his property to an African American woman -- Dees v. Metts -- in which Amasa Coleman Lee figured prominently. He had assisted the man in transferring property during life to the woman -- and later provided testimony that the man was competent when he made that conveyance. Max Cassady, a Mobile lawyer, has a good article about the case here.
Update: I just remembered a vignette about Watchman that I've been meaning to share. When I was home in Philadelphia over winter break I was in Kmart and I checked out their book section -- I'm always interested in what's offered for sale to "the masses." I was so happy to see that Watchman was there along with the romance novels and self-help books. Very exciting and testimony to how far Ms. Lee's influence stretches.
Update 2: Cumberland Law Review has a symposium on Harper Lee's Watchman.
A nice piece from the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/books/la-et-jc-harper-lee-tribute-20160220-story.html
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | February 20, 2016 at 09:14 PM
There's a nice piece in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/books/la-et-jc-harper-lee-tribute-20160220-story.html
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | February 20, 2016 at 11:32 PM
So, Demi-God Professor of Law Brophy, you stepped down from your pious Ivory Tower to wallow among the hoi ploy at K-Mart? Your language is insulting, degrading and drips with condescension. "Offered for sale to the masses." WOW. I believe a better statement is this: What is offered in the mass trade book section. "Mass Trade" is the term of art the publishing industry uses. What YOU did was throw a label on folks who shop at K-Mart. How richly ironic...it was everything Harper Lee spoke against.
Posted by: Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King | February 21, 2016 at 10:44 AM
I got to meet Harper Lee my senior year of college. She commented that I didn't look old enough to be out of grade school.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I kept up my youthful appearance through all the beauty sleep I got while trying to read TKAM.
Posted by: Derek Tokaz | February 22, 2016 at 10:45 AM
Actually, no. Mass market paperback is one thing, trade paperback is another, Carswell. At least for the seven years I was in the business, "mass" and "trade" were not the same thing. And "mass market paperback" has exactly the origins you would think, consistent with Brophy's use of the word "masses" - pulp fiction, the actual printing is cheaper, which incidentally is why they are stripped and trashed, not sent back to the publishers. Unlike trade paperbacks. It is unusual and worth noting when a classic is reprinted in this way, no?
Posted by: minority report | February 22, 2016 at 05:39 PM
His written statement trips the line into people. He did not use the language to refer to an item or a thing. He is an attorney just like me and knows that language is critical. When Bill Clinton said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word is is." He was correct it is all the language. He didn't write offered for sale in the mass market book department. He noted offered for sale to the masses: People, human beings who shop at K-Mart. The language may have the same origins, but the results, appearance and connotations are far different.
Posted by: Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King | February 22, 2016 at 07:44 PM
Carswell - I think "to the masses" simply means what's being offered in a market with a wide distribution and was not intended as an insult. Brophy wasn't insulting Kmart shoppers (he is one) but commenting on the kind of book that would be sold in a store which sells a wide variety of things to a broad cross section of shoppers. Noting that something has broad appeal isn't insulting, is it? Tastes vary and while mysteries and "genre" books tend to have broad (i.e. mass) appeal, other types of books rarely do. Just ask anyone in publishing (I also used to be "in the business"). The Harry Potter series was a rare exception b/c it also had very broad appeal yet wasn't a genre book (although it more or less created its own genre).
Posted by: My two cents | February 22, 2016 at 08:43 PM
For once, I have to agree with the notion that in the legal academy generally there is the self regard associated with being "elite" and low regard for "the masses": the author clearly suggested that he was slumming and touring the latter's domain.
Most law faculty consider themselves to be better than other people and that includes not only the "masses" but also anyone who deviates from the druid like orthodoxy peddled in legal academia concerning their world view (which often devolves into risibly naïve and ill informed political trash, peddled straight from the pages of the internet tabloids).
All that said, AL Brophy appears in these pages to be a gentlemen and a fair minded individual (and I say this as someone who has disagreed vehemently with him on certain issues). He sometimes, but rarely strays into items like Trump bashing and looking down his nose at "the masses." So, I would recommend giving him the benefit of the doubt here and not dwell on one stray remark.
Posted by: anon | February 22, 2016 at 08:47 PM
Are some of y'all just not familiar with how scare quotes work?
Posted by: Derek Tokaz | February 24, 2016 at 09:10 AM
Professor Tabor,
I am not familiar with a "scare quote" or how they operate. Don't get too complicated in your explanation. I have to admit that I only read the Cliff Notes version of TKAM. They sold Cliff Notes at K-Mart during the 70s by the way.
Posted by: Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King | February 24, 2016 at 10:43 AM
Derek
"scare quotes are quotation marks used around a word or phrase not to indicate a direct quotation but to suggest that the expression is somehow inappropriate or misleading"
What use above do you find inappropriate?
Posted by: anon | February 24, 2016 at 12:19 PM