The Meadows - Harper Lee

Novelist Harper Lee currently lives in Meadows of Monroeville, a small, assisted living facility on the outskirts of the town. (Connor Sheets | csheets@al.com)

Multiple residents of Monroeville who have known Harper Lee for years said Wednesday that they believe the 88-year-old author does not possess sufficient mental faculties to make informed decisions about her literary career.

Suspicion has emerged about the timing of publisher HarperCollins' announcement Tuesday that her second novel, "Go Set a Watchman" is slated to be released this summer.

Four people who knew Lee to varying degrees and live in or just outside the town where Lee has lived most of her life and on which she based Maycomb -- the fictional setting of her seminal 1960 novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- told AL.com Wednesday they believe Lee's wishes for her career are not being respected.

Monroeville lawyer Tonja Carter has long represented Lee and has power of attorney over her affairs. But area residents who know the writer say that Carter has in recent years taken steps to keep her from seeing her friends and family, and become increasingly litigious on her behalf in a way that they do not believe Lee would have supported when she was younger and more alert.

Janet Sawyer, owner of the Courthouse Cafe in Monroeville's compact town square, said she believes that Carter has taken even greater control over her life in the short time since her protective sister, Alice Lee, died in November at the age of 103.

Sawyer believes that the decision to publish "Go Set a Watchman," described as a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," later this year was made by Carter alone. Carter did not respond to repeated telephone and email requests for comment Wednesday.

"I don't think she agreed to do it. I think it's her attorney being greedy, because Ms. Lee was a very private person who didn't like a lot of publicity," Sawyer said.

"She had a stroke several years ago and her mind is not in a condition to make these decisions, I don't think, personally. Tonja Carter doesn't allow her to see her friends anymore. She's isolated her from the world in order to manipulate her."

The restaurateur says she used to frequently serve the Lee sisters potato soup in her quirky eatery until two years ago, when the author -- whose friends call by her first name, Nelle -- stopped by for the last time, by that point requiring a wheelchair to get around.

Sawyer said that the novelist always said she didn't want her second book, which had been the subject of persistent rumors in Monroeville until its existence was confirmed this week, to be published until after she had passed away, as she wanted to avoid the limelight in the twilight of her life.

Lee currently lives in Meadows of Monroeville, a small, assisted living facility with rocking chairs on its quaint front porch and yellow siding that sits along a highway bypass on the outskirts of the town. An employee of the facility said that she could not allow anyone to see the author, leave her a message or to interview anyone who works or lives there about her without prior approval by Carter.

"Anyone who wants to see Ms. Lee needs to go through her lawyer," the employee said. "She's not seeing anyone."

A uniformed security guard posted inside the entrance of Meadows Wednesday afternoon backed up the employee's words upon further inquiry by AL.com.

"You need to leave now. You don't talk to the staff or anyone else here. Don't push me," he said.

A sleepy town with an old-fashioned feel nestled amid the hilly timberlands of southern Alabama, Monroeville's rumor mill kicked into high gear Tuesday when the news emerged that a second Harper Lee book was going to be published five decades after it was completed.

"The original manuscript of the novel was considered to have been lost until fall 2014, when Tonja Carter discovered it in a secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird," HarperCollins said in a statement Tuesday.

The publisher also issued a statement attributed to Lee.

"I hadn't realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it," the statement read. "After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

Four Monroeville-area residents who have seen Lee in recent years said Wednesday that they doubted the veracity of that quote, and of the version of events it supports. Two of them spoke at length about the situation but declined to be named on the record because they did not want to be seen as meddling in Lee's affairs.

Diane Simmons, a Monroeville real estate broker who attended the town's First United Methodist Church along with Lee, said she does not believe Lee would want the book to be published this year.

"I know her health has declined," she said Wednesday. "It seems a little strange that this book would be coming out now. It seems out of character for how we've known her."