The unforgettable novel of childhood in a sleepy Southern
town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was
first published in 1960. It went on to win the Putlizer prize in 1961
and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, “To
Kill a Mockingbird” takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to
innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor
and pathos. Now with over 15 million copies in print and translated into
forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal
appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story.
Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.
--from To Kill A Mockingbird, Warner Books Edition
Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama,
during the Depression, "To Kill a Mockingbird" follows three
years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their
father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial
of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story
explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of
a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice,
and the pain of growing up.
Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time
getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer
before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris,
a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the
hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at
the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding
the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent
white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus
is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem
find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During
the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance
as well--in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine
habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for
what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding
that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them."
By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, "To Kill a Mockingbird"
is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves
to be reread often.
--Alix Wilber (Amazon.com)
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