"When he was nearly thirteen, my
brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.... When enough years
had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed
the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started
it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long
before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill
first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."
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
