Book Review: Furious Hours by Casey Cep

This was an extraordinary book, that actually felt like three stories for the price of one. I am a life-long fan of To Kill a Mockingbird and one of those who always wished we’d had more from the impressively talented Harper Lee. When Go Set a Watchman was released in 2015, I was one of those who delighted in the news, then questioned the decision after reading the backstory about Lee’s condition and her lawyer’s involvement in the release. The book was rough and felt unpolished – which I learned, courtesy of Furious Hours, was exactly how most (including Lee) described it when it was written, and which is why it was never released under Lee’s own direction. The mystery surrounding the decision to suddenly release it, coupled with the knowledge I’ve gleaned over the years about Lee’s role in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood means that I’ve long been fascinated by the topic of Lee’s life and times and writing history, and when I saw this current title available on Penguin First to Read, I couldn’t request it fast enough…

I’m so glad I did – it didn’t disappoint at all, even if it wasn’t exactly what I expected.

The book is broken into three sections, which read like books of their own. They present various elements of the “final” work Lee was writing – a behind-the-scenes investigation, ala In Cold Blood, of a bizarre murder and it’s even more bizarrely back-storied victim, that occurred in the very South that Lee (and Atticus and Scout) hailed from. It’s an unusual construct for a book billed as focusing on Lee, particularly since it opens with very little mention of her. The three sections, focusing on Willie Maxwell (the “victim”), Big Tom Radney (the attorney), and Harper Lee, all felt very different in style and substance, but yet somehow (mostly) worked together when packaged as one book. That doesn’t always happen, and for a little while (in the Big Tom section, which I found a fair bit slower than the others) I wasn’t sure it would, but the Harper Lee piece really brought it all home and tied things together. (That section was, to my mind, the high point of the book and why I picked it up in the first place.)

By focusing on the others before Lee, the book was (I think) attempting to hone in on what Lee was struggling with for so much of her final years. As I said, it worked in the end, but I did occasionally find myself forgetting what I was supposed to be reading (not necessarily in a bad way). I do think it all came together though, and that’s a testament to Cep’s writing I think, which does a fine job at blending facts with narrative. This is truly a book where truth is stranger than fiction, and the drama leaps off the page and smacks you in the face such that it rarely feels like a biography/non-fictional account of various lives that intersected in dramatic and life-altering ways. It made the read an easy one, overall.

This was a fascinating look at three very different lives that intersected in major ways, although not always directly, and the different focal points and perspectives were well-presented, thoughtful, and highly entertaining to read. I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Thanks to the Penguin First to Read program for my review copy.