Short male in abridged Harper Lee novel (9)
I believe the answer is:
ephemeral
'short' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'male in abridged harper lee novel' is the wordplay.
'male' becomes 'm' (common abbreviation).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'abridged' means to remove the last letter.
'novel' is an anagram indicator.
'harper' with its final letter taken away is 'harpe'.
'harpe'+'lee'='harpelee'
'harpelee' is an anagram of 'epheeral'.
'm' put into 'epheeral' is 'EPHEMERAL'.
(Other definitions for ephemeral that I've seen before include "not going to last long" , "Short lived" , "Transitory" , "just for a day?" , "Having only brief existence" .)