Broad Ripple author David Dessauer discussed how his debut book and future movie, Harper Lee and Me, was inspired from her classic, To Kill A Mockingbird (TKAM).

"It is a screenplay right now and we are working with a producer. My writer is also a producer who has some contacts and is talking with some people who might be interested. We're entered it in several script contests. It was awarded Best Writer and Best Screenplay in the Christian Online Film Festival. We have a couple more festivals where it is entered in the screenplay division, one is the Branson International Film Festival, Branson, Missouri and the Lindsey Film Festival in Alabama. We may be looking for investors in the movie in the near future," he explained.

His book was created out of several life changing circumstances. "The story is about how I wrote, going through depression, bankruptcy, divorce and a job loss, but writing the book was a lifeline for me and studying some of the things that Harper Lee secretly put into her book, To Kill A Mockingbird. She studied the Bible and put much of it into her novel. Her follow-up book, Go Set A Watchman is the actually the first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird from Isiah 21:6, which mentions the fall of Babylon," he said.

"I think she uses Jean Valjean from the French novel Les Misérables (written by Victor Hugo) that have several connections to Atticus Finch. Atticus is the best shot in TKAM and Jean Valjean is also a crack shot and did not like to shoot little birds. "Harper Lee worked on a humor magazine called Rammer-Jammer in 1945-46 while in college, and also wrote for the college newspaper, the Crimson-White at the University of Alabama, which was similar to the Harvard University's Lampoon magazine. I think she used pictures from the Rammer-Jammer in the book To Kill A Mockingbird. Boo Radley from (Chapter 1) is described as eating cats and squirrels with scars across his face and drooling, well there is a picture of a dog in the Rammer Jammer that fits this description. There are 17 pictures in the book from the Rammer Jammer, that all correspond to the narrative of TKAM," Dessauer mentioned. (See dog cartoon below and football cartoon at end with quote from TKAM.)

Writing his debut novel was a personal journey. "It took me five years to figure this out. I started writing the book in December of 2015 and would get up at four in the morning and write until Noon. I came across a quote in the Bible from Sirach. I went to the Bible after getting a foreclosure notice and got the name Scout, which Harper Lee uses in her book, but the book she writes is better then what you read. That date of the rape (in To Kill A Mockingbird) was a falsehood that occurred on November 21. It is a feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Catholic calendar, so it is kind of a joke to herself, and from Proverbs 11:21 where it mentions, "Be assured, the evil man will be punished, but the offspring of the righteous will escape. This perfectly foreshadows the action in TKAM and does so without writing one word!" he noted.

Dessauer studied the various secrets that Harper Lee inserted into To Kill A Mockingbird. A former rugby player, he graduated from Wabash College and Chatard High School. He enjoys reading the classics, traveling and scuba diving and is the father of four children.

"Psalm 109 is a psalm of pure misery and is a microcosm of Les Misérables. The number 109 is prominent in Les Misérables. It is incredibly so deep to me. But Lee does the same thing in TKAM. Mayella Ewell takes a year to save seven nickels in order to get rid of all her siblings so she can seduce Tom Robinson. Proverbs 7:5 states, "That they may keep you from the loose woman, from the seductress with her smooth words." Proverbs 7 is also a microcosm of TKAM with a bird that is killed along with a man. When the kids go into the black church, there's only one painting in there which is William Holman Hunt's Light of The World. Which has a secret that Hunt did not reveal for over 50 years. Christ is at the Door, but there is no door handle - you have to go to him, he can't come to you. You have to look at these things in a different light. The pictures are so important. She is literally using this picture in the book in order to reveal that there are secrets in TKAM," he emphasized.

David Dessauer's book Harper Lee and Me is available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Harper-Lee-Me-David-Dessauer/dp/1662806345/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=harper+lee+and+me&qid=1637529222&sr=8-1. An inspiration from a classic American Novel, his debut writing is a unique Christmas gift for readers of this genre.

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All this fits this cartoon perfectly, the player has a number 12 on his jersey, therefore almost 13, the hands and the thumb fit the description to a T. The left thumb is parallel to his thigh and the hand opposite is at a right angle.