Furious Hours

 

From what I've encountered so far when I tell people my opinions about this book, I can warn you now: this is a hot take.

It just tried to do too much. 

It took too long to read.

It didn't hold me. At least not the way it was structured.

I'll back up and explain what it's about, because it's fantastic.

In the 1970's, famed author Harper Lee returned to her home state of Alabama, determined to write a true crime account of a series of murders that captivated the region. She hadn't put out a book since To Kill a Mockingbird and, by all accounts, was tortured by the very process of writing. She spent countless hours sitting in trial, researching, interviewing, writing... But the book was never released and no one knows how far she got if she tried.

The murder case itself is fascinating. It's multiple murders, in fact. An Alabama preacher was implicated in the deaths of five people close to him: his first wife, his brother, his neighbor (whose wife he later married), his nephew and his step-daughter. All of the deaths were suspicious, many were under similar circumstances and all of them had a life insurance link back to William Maxwell. The town was scared and one man was so fed up, he shot Maxwell at point blank range in the church after Maxwell's stepdaughter's funeral. Hundreds saw it happened, yet the man who did it was acquitted.

The first part of this book is an incredibly detailed account of Maxwell's life and crimes. Dare I say, too detailed. There are so many people to track, so many extraneous details and nary a mention of Ms. Lee. On its own, it would have been a hell of a book.

Then, we move into Lee's connection. Well, first, we go into her background. I had no idea she grew up next door to Truman Capote and that she was along with him when he was researching In Cold Blood. That part, and the background of the release of To Kill a Mockingbird, was fascinating, too. But, it was also dragged down by more extraneous details that did not advance the plot or characters.

Finally, we get to the final years of Lee's life and writing career. As is widely known, she became a recluse and never wrote again. Yes, Go Set a Watchman was released, but the back story on that thing is another book altogether. In fact, this book reveals that it was the book she wrote before Mockingbird and that it was shopped around, yet never released. This book gets into the demons Lee was fighting and everything her family and agents tried to do to help before her death in 2016. To me, it was the most compelling part of Furious Hours.

This book exists in three sections and would have been better off as three books. I admire the research and detail, but an author also needs to know what to leave out. I felt myself initially captivated, but almost quit multiple times before ultimately finishing it, unsatisfied.