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Many readers meet "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a school assignment, and some never go back to it. That is a pity, because this is not a book that needs to be studied before it can be enjoyed. It is funny, warm, and often suspenseful, and it is told by one of the most memorable narrators in American fiction: a stubborn, sharp-tongued little girl who would rather climb a tree than wear a dress.
If you have been putting it off because you have heard it is a "serious book about racism," that description is true but incomplete. The novel does take on injustice directly. But it gets there slowly, through summer games, neighborhood gossip, and a child's attempts to make sense of the adults around her. This review covers the opening setup and what makes the book worth reading, without giving away how the story unfolds.
The author and her time
Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama, and died there on February 19, 2016. "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published on July 11, 1960, by J. B. Lippincott & Co. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year, and it has since sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into more than 40 languages.
The story and its characters are loosely based on what Lee observed of her family and neighbors in Monroeville. The novel is set between 1933 and 1935, in the middle of the Great Depression, in a Southern town where poverty was common and racial segregation was simply the way things were.
Where the story begins
The town is Maycomb, Alabama, a fictional county seat. Jean Louise Finch, known to everyone as Scout, is six years old when the book opens. She lives with her older brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Calpurnia, the family's Black cook, has been with them for many years and helps Atticus raise the children.
One summer, Scout and Jem make friends with Dill, a boy who comes to Maycomb each summer to stay with his aunt. The three of them become obsessed with a neighbor they have never seen: Arthur "Boo" Radley, who never leaves his house. The adults would rather not talk about him, which only makes things worse. The children trade rumors about what he looks like and why he stays inside, and they dare one another to get closer to the Radley place.
Then Atticus agrees to defend a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman, and the Finch family begins to feel the hostility of their white neighbors. What happens next is for you to discover.
Why it lasts
The book's quiet trick is its narrator. The events are seen by Scout as a child, but they are told by Scout as an adult looking back. Lee blends the two voices so smoothly that you barely notice the switch. The result is that a single scene can be comic and painful at the same time. Scout often reports things she does not fully understand, and the reader understands them a moment before she does. That gap is where much of the novel's power comes from. It lets Lee show prejudice at work without lecturing anyone.
Atticus is the other reason people keep returning to the book. He is patient and dry, and he talks to his kids as if their questions deserve real answers. Watching how Scout and Jem slowly come to see him, and their town, more clearly is one of the book's great pleasures.
Keep the title in mind as you read. Why a mockingbird, and why would anyone want to kill one? The adults in Maycomb explain it along the way, and once you know, you may find yourself asking which characters the title might be about.
A tip for first-time readers: the early chapters move at the pace of a long, hot Southern summer. Let them. The small details about neighbors, school, and family are setting up everything that follows.
Who should read it
"To Kill a Mockingbird" suits readers who enjoy coming-of-age stories, strong narrative voices, and novels that deal with big moral questions through ordinary lives. If you only know the book from a classroom or from the film, it is worth reading again as an adult. You will notice different things. And if you have never read it at all, it remains one of the most rewarding places to start with American fiction.
By the time Scout and Jem first go running past the Radley house, you will already be a resident of Maycomb.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "To Kill a Mockingbird" (publication date and publisher, setting and period, opening premise, sales and translations, narrative voice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird
- Wikipedia, "Harper Lee" (birth and death dates, hometown, 1961 Pulitzer Prize) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee
- Hayakawa Publishing, "To Kill a Mockingbird" new Japanese translation by Nobuo Kamioka (publisher's description of the premise) https://www.hayakawa-online.co.jp/shop/g/g0000614327/