TBW Daily Diary

I was saddened to hear that Larry Kirkhuff"s mother, Ginny, passed away early this morning. She was 98 . . . Just learned that there was considerable street vandalism Friday night in the area of Mangi Qui on North Street. Plants destroyed, urns smashed . . . There was a pleasant essay by a Widener professor in the Pat-News today; discussed books that featured young people growing into adulthood. Spotlighted To Kill a Mockingbird among others . . . Have a cute story about Harper Lee and her prize-winning book that made the publishing business rounds in the late sixties. May or may not be true, so perhaps I am perpetuating a myth. Anyway, it was rumored that the initial manuscript was a series of short stories that publisher J. P. Lippincott & Company wanted framed into a novel. Ms. Lee apparently worked with editors in the company's downtown Philadelphia offices, sweating through a hot summer of preparation. The book went on to be a sensation and Lippincott's only volume to reach Number One on best seller lists. When she returned a year or so later, she discovered that all the offices had since been air conditioned. "Oh," she cooed in her best Southern drawl, "did I do that?" . . . Ms. Lee made several false starts but never wrote another book. A close childhood friend of Truman Capote, she did contribute (uncredited) to Capote's In Cold Blood . . .