Actually, it's Dill that's supposed to be Truman Capote.

I thought Truman Capote wrote the book and gave it to Harper Lee to publish under her own name.

In any case, incredible book, although it was a little disappointing in that it failed to live up to its title. I never did learn how to kill a mockingbird in that book.

Eh? The title is "To Kill a Mockingbird", and not "How To Kill a Mockingbird".

The title derives from this line in the story (paraphrasing from memory here): "Kill all the bluejays you want, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Edit: On second reading, you were probably joking. Oh well.

The original title was 2,000 Mockingbirds. It was changed to 2.0k Mockingbird because the country was in the throes of a full conversion to the Metric System in 1960.

They're parroting an observation from a special about the book; it's a bit misleading taken out of context. The original observation was making a comment about Harper Lee's reclusive and private nature, not suggesting that Lee modeled Boo Radley directly on herself...though I'm sure many of the characters in the book contain bits of the author.

Watch "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill A Mockingbird" I think you'll at least agree that Dill is Truman Capote.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/harper-lee-...