Scout, Atticus, And Boo Part 1

Scout, Atticus, and Boo.

A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird.

by Mary McDonagh Murphy.

Foreword: A Mockingbird Mosaic

BY WALLY LAMB.

During the summer of 1992, when my first novel, She's Come Undone She's Come Undone, was published, I'd drive my sons, ages eleven and seven, to the local shopping mall and, approaching the bookstore, offer them a deal, "Whoever's the first to find Dad's book on the shelf gets fifty cents." They'd dash into the store. I'd wait. And wait. And wait some more. Eventually the boys would return, slump-shouldered and pouty-faced. "We give up, Dad," they'd say. "Can we still have the money?" Five years later, Oprah Winfrey held up a copy of Undone Undone and announced to her millions of viewers that it was the latest selection of her wildly popular book club. The following week the novel was number one. A and announced to her millions of viewers that it was the latest selection of her wildly popular book club. The following week the novel was number one. A Boston Globe Boston Globe article captures the moment. Above a photo of me seated before a high school cla.s.s, a deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face, a headline asks, "Wally article captures the moment. Above a photo of me seated before a high school cla.s.s, a deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face, a headline asks, "Wally WHO WHO?"

I own three copies of To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. One is a lush leather-bound edition with gilt-edged pages-a gift from a bookseller for whom I'd signed some first editions of my novels. The second copy was a present from my publisher-a fortieth anniversary edition that brought tears to my eyes when I opened it, leafed to the t.i.tle page, and saw Lee's signature. My third copy, the oldest and sorriest of the three, is the one I hold most dear. The cover's long gone. The pages are foxed, the margins filled with my scrawled notes. Within the text, certain words-ambidextrous, florid florid, primeval primeval-are circled and flagged for vocabulary lessons. This is my teaching copy of the Popular Library paperback, circa 1974, when Mockingbird Mockingbird, like some of my students, was fourteen years old. The price of the book: a buck and a quarter. The paperback printing number: 94. (The original hardcover published by J. B. Lippincott had returned to press twenty-two times before that.) The binding of this copy fell apart decades ago, and so the loose pages are held together with a black-and-silver metal clip large enough to set off airport security alarms. Said pages have been shuffled hopelessly out of sequence. Thus, Scout walks Boo Radley back to his house before before Atticus discredits Bob Ewell on the witness stand. That cranky old racist Mrs. Dubose dies drug-free Atticus discredits Bob Ewell on the witness stand. That cranky old racist Mrs. Dubose dies drug-free before before Jem is obliged to read to her as she painfully withdraws from morphine. And, this is strange, the final metal-clipped pages of my tattered teaching copy have wandered over from an entirely different book: Mark Twain's Jem is obliged to read to her as she painfully withdraws from morphine. And, this is strange, the final metal-clipped pages of my tattered teaching copy have wandered over from an entirely different book: Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Strange but fitting, I guess. In terms of literary heritage, I think of Salinger's Strange but fitting, I guess. In terms of literary heritage, I think of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye as as Mockingbird Mockingbird's older brother and Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn as the father of both books. All three novels, each a product of its era, give voice to outsider American kids trying to negotiate an adult world full of hypocrites. All three counterbalance the pain of human failings with the healing balm of humor. "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted," Twain warns before he allows Huck to speak. "Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." I can all but hear the droll, self-effacing Nelle Harper Lee chuckling at Sam Clemens's tongue-in-cheek "warning." as the father of both books. All three novels, each a product of its era, give voice to outsider American kids trying to negotiate an adult world full of hypocrites. All three counterbalance the pain of human failings with the healing balm of humor. "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted," Twain warns before he allows Huck to speak. "Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." I can all but hear the droll, self-effacing Nelle Harper Lee chuckling at Sam Clemens's tongue-in-cheek "warning."

I met doc.u.mentary filmmaker Mary Murphy the day she arrived at my Connecticut home to interview me about Mockingbird Mockingbird. As her two-man crew, cameraman Rich White and sound engineer Jack Norflus, converted my garage into a makes.h.i.+ft television studio, Mary and I chatted about our kids, our musical tastes, good New York restaurants. But once the mic had been clipped to my s.h.i.+rt and the bright lights were aimed at my world-weary mug, our conversation s.h.i.+fted to my long-standing relations.h.i.+p with Harper Lee's only novel-first as a reluctant teenage reader; then as a teacher of high school, university, and prison students; then as a fiction writer; and finally as a writer who, like Lee, was taken unawares by best-sellerdom. At the end of the interview, Mary and the guys backed down my driveway and, over the next several years, drove on to the homes and offices of twenty-something other interviewees. Recently, when I received an advance copy of Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird," Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird," the companion book to Murphy's illuminating doc.u.mentary, I flipped past my own comments and hungrily read the interviews of others: writers, teachers, celebrities, and those who know Harper Lee and/or Maycomb, a.k.a. Monroeville, the Alabama town in which Lee was raised. "Each time another person agreed to be interviewed, I wondered if there was anything new to be said," Murphy writes. "Invariably, there was." the companion book to Murphy's illuminating doc.u.mentary, I flipped past my own comments and hungrily read the interviews of others: writers, teachers, celebrities, and those who know Harper Lee and/or Maycomb, a.k.a. Monroeville, the Alabama town in which Lee was raised. "Each time another person agreed to be interviewed, I wondered if there was anything new to be said," Murphy writes. "Invariably, there was."

And how!

Attorney/author Scott Turow and TV's Tom Brokaw laud Harper Lee's bravery in writing Mockingbird Mockingbird, given the tenor of the times and the fact that she was raised in the segregated South. "I think [Lee] helped liberate white people with that book," Brokaw says. James McBride, author of The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, calls Lee "a brilliant writer," but stops short of calling her brave. He wonders why the book's black characters, heroic as they are, don't survive, and why there are no details about the life of the Finches' housekeeper, Calpurnia, after she goes home from work. "I think Martin Luther King was brave, Malcolm X was brave, James Baldwin, who was gay and black in America and who had to move to France was brave," he says. "I think she did the best she could, given how she was raised. That still doesn't absolve the book or this country of the whole business of racism." Novelist and fellow Monroeville native Mark Childress, Lee's junior by more than thirty years, nevertheless remembers the separate white and black service windows in the Dairy Queen of his youth. Educator Mary Tucker, who taught in the public schools of Lee's hometown before and after segregation, recalls the era in which, as a black woman shopping for clothes in downtown Monroeville, she was obliged to try on dresses over her own clothes-something white shoppers were not obliged to do. Of the "hard scrabble" time and place in which Harper Lee set her novel, the Reverend Thomas Lane b.u.t.ts, pastor emeritus of the Methodist church where the Lee family wors.h.i.+pped, says, "It was a time in which black people were treated terribly and people took in racism with their mother's milk." Reverend b.u.t.ts identifies Harper Lee as a "ministerial friend" and Lee's older sister, Alice Finch Lee, as one of his idols. In Scout, Atticus, and Boo Scout, Atticus, and Boo, Mary Murphy includes her interview with ninety-eight-year-old Miss Alice, and it's a fascinating one.

Fascinating, too, is the discovery that Murphy's interviewees pledge their allegiance to several different characters. Feminist writers Anna Quindlen, Lee Smith, and Adriana Trigiani are lifetime members of the Scout Finch fan club. But bestselling novelist James Patterson identifies more with Scout's big brother. "My connection was more to Jem because he was a boy," he told Murphy. (I suppose Jem Finch's impact has leeched into my bones, too. To this day, whenever I write about jewels, spell check has to remind me that the word is "gems," not "jems.") The allegiances of attorney and author Scott Turow and lifelong civil rights activist Andrew Young lie with Atticus. "He is a paragon beyond paragons," Turow says. Young likens Tom Robinson's courtroom defender to the Eisenhower-appointed judges who took on the segregationists. "These were all the Southern intelligentsia-and they were Atticus Finch," Young observes. "They were the fine, upstanding men of wisdom and courage that really, without them we would not have had a civil rights movement." Novelist Richard Russo and singer Rosanne Cash are Atticus fans, too-more for his parenting than his lawyering.

In the pages ahead, you will read a fascinating mosaic: how and why the interviewees relate to Mockingbird Mockingbird and its characters, their varying reactions to the 1962 film based on the book, and their mult.i.tude of theories as to why Harper Lee never published another novel. and its characters, their varying reactions to the 1962 film based on the book, and their mult.i.tude of theories as to why Harper Lee never published another novel.

Here's mine.

Several years back, Harper Lee and Oprah Winfrey met for lunch in New York. The talk-show host's hope was that she might be able to convince Lee to be interviewed on her TV show. (Lee has consistently declined interviews since the mid-1960s.) In trying to let Oprah down easily, Lee said, "You know the character Boo Radley? Well, if you know Boo, then you understand why I wouldn't be doing an interview, because I am really Boo." But Boo was a recluse and Harper Lee, from all reports, is not. Lee is cagey and Boo was not. So if Lee is part Boo, I think she is also, on her own behalf, the novel's kind and cagey Sheriff Tate. In telling Atticus why the "official" version of how Bob Ewell got killed will stray from what really happened, Sheriff Tate says, "To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight-to me, that's a sin." A few sentences later, Scout likens the exposure of Boo to Maycomb's hero wors.h.i.+p to "shootin' a mockingbird." So to my my way of thinkin', the wise and wonderful Harper Lee is, simultaneously, Boo, Scout, the sheriff, and the mockingbird. She may not grant interviews, but she is still singing away via her 1960 masterpiece. way of thinkin', the wise and wonderful Harper Lee is, simultaneously, Boo, Scout, the sheriff, and the mockingbird. She may not grant interviews, but she is still singing away via her 1960 masterpiece.

Finally, the teacher in me cannot resist giving you an a.s.signment-albeit one that's sure to bring you hours and hours of pleasure. Read Mary Murphy's Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird" Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird" or watch her doc.u.mentary. Then watch the Robert Mulligandirected theatrical film, adapted by playwright Horton Foote and starring Gregory Peck in his Oscar-winning role as Atticus Finch. Then go back, read, and savor the fifty-year-old original. Shuffle the above order as you desire. But however you choose to tackle this a.s.signment, I invite you to think, feel, and enjoy. or watch her doc.u.mentary. Then watch the Robert Mulligandirected theatrical film, adapted by playwright Horton Foote and starring Gregory Peck in his Oscar-winning role as Atticus Finch. Then go back, read, and savor the fifty-year-old original. Shuffle the above order as you desire. But however you choose to tackle this a.s.signment, I invite you to think, feel, and enjoy.

PART I.

Scout, Atticus, and Boo

"OUR N NATIONAL N NOVEL"

Reading To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is something millions of us have in common, yet there is nothing common about the experience. It is usually an extraordinary one. is something millions of us have in common, yet there is nothing common about the experience. It is usually an extraordinary one. To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird leaves a mark. And somehow, it is hermetically sealed in our brains-the memory of it fresh and clear no matter how many decades have pa.s.sed. If you ask, people will tell you exactly where they were and what was happening to them when they read Harper Lee's first and only novel. It may be the first "adult" book we read, a.s.signed in eighth or ninth grade. Often it is the first time a young reader is completely kidnapped by a novel, taken on an enthralling ride until the very end. After half a century, leaves a mark. And somehow, it is hermetically sealed in our brains-the memory of it fresh and clear no matter how many decades have pa.s.sed. If you ask, people will tell you exactly where they were and what was happening to them when they read Harper Lee's first and only novel. It may be the first "adult" book we read, a.s.signed in eighth or ninth grade. Often it is the first time a young reader is completely kidnapped by a novel, taken on an enthralling ride until the very end. After half a century, To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird's staying power is remarkable: still a best seller, always at the top of lists of readers' favorites, far and away the most widely read book in high school.

"I think it is our national novel," Oprah Winfrey told me when I interviewed her for my doc.u.mentary about To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird's power and influence. "If there was a national novel award, this would be it for the United States. When I opened my school [for girls in South Africa], everybody wanted to know what we can bring and what can we give the girls. I asked everybody to bring their favorite book, and I would say we probably have a hundred copies of this book. Each person who brought the book wrote their own words to the girls about why they believe this book was an important book, and everybody says something different."

That's because almost everyone can relate to it-one way or another. Look at all the ground To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird covers: childhood, cla.s.s, citizens.h.i.+p, conscience, race, justice, fatherhood, friends.h.i.+p, love, and loneliness. With all due respect to the wave of social-networking sites, applications, and abbreviations in which we are awash these days, I would like to point out that the community this fifty-year-old novel invites and enjoys is one of the greatest social networks of all time. Try saying "Boo Radley" to the person next to you on the bus. Or say "chiffarobe," as Mayella Ewell does. Mention Scout, Atticus, Jem, Mrs. Dubose, or Tom Robinson, and see where it takes you. People respond. They connect. Friends.h.i.+ps form. covers: childhood, cla.s.s, citizens.h.i.+p, conscience, race, justice, fatherhood, friends.h.i.+p, love, and loneliness. With all due respect to the wave of social-networking sites, applications, and abbreviations in which we are awash these days, I would like to point out that the community this fifty-year-old novel invites and enjoys is one of the greatest social networks of all time. Try saying "Boo Radley" to the person next to you on the bus. Or say "chiffarobe," as Mayella Ewell does. Mention Scout, Atticus, Jem, Mrs. Dubose, or Tom Robinson, and see where it takes you. People respond. They connect. Friends.h.i.+ps form.

When I met Liz Tirrell, a screenwriter and doc.u.mentary director, it did not take long to find out she could recite line after line from the book and the movie. We bonded over "Hey, Mr. Cunningham...I'm Jean Louise Finch. I go to school with Walter; he's your boy, ain't he?"

When Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Diane McWhorter was growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, she and her schoolmates recited the "Hey, Mr. Cunningham" lines and spoke Scout whenever possible. "Cecil Jacobs is a big wet hen," and "What in the Sam Hill are you doing?" and other imitations rang out at recess.

Anna Quindlen, the Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist and novelist, said she simply could not be friends with anyone who does not "get" Scout. "I remember someone telling me that they thought Scout was a peripheral character, and I was shocked out of my skin."

But then, I have another friend, a novelist who teaches fiction writing, who told me that when she mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird as a favorite, a fellow professor said, "We don't consider that literature here." as a favorite, a fellow professor said, "We don't consider that literature here."

Really?

"YOU H HAVE A ANOTHER T THINK C COMING"

That p.r.o.nouncement sent me right back to the novel. And unlike other favorites from childhood, another reading of To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird rewards and reaffirms. The story is as rich as the Alabama soil it comes from; its veins can be mined over and over again. If you think you cannot go back to it and find more, "You have another think coming," as Scout Finch would say. rewards and reaffirms. The story is as rich as the Alabama soil it comes from; its veins can be mined over and over again. If you think you cannot go back to it and find more, "You have another think coming," as Scout Finch would say.

My second reading of To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird was a revelation. It felt as though I was reading it for the very first time. How could I have forgotten Calpurnia and "It's not necessary to tell all you know"? Or Dolphus Raymond, the drunk, who was not a drunk at all? Or all the history? And the writing. The writing! The economy was dazzling. My enthusiasm was unbridled, my appreciation immense. was a revelation. It felt as though I was reading it for the very first time. How could I have forgotten Calpurnia and "It's not necessary to tell all you know"? Or Dolphus Raymond, the drunk, who was not a drunk at all? Or all the history? And the writing. The writing! The economy was dazzling. My enthusiasm was unbridled, my appreciation immense.

Looking back, I see that the first time, I was blinded by love. For Scout: funny, smart, overall-wearing, fists-flying, lynch-mob-scattering Scout. Scout knew who she was, and she had the greatest father on the planet.

Here she was again-only better.

On her cousin: "Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean. He was the most boring child I ever met."

On the neighbors: "The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown ent.i.ty the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose was plain h.e.l.l."

On her father: "Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty."

On the caste system in her town: "...to my mind it worked this way: the older citizens, the present generation of people who had lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted att.i.tudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time. Thus the dicta No Crawford Minds His Own Business, Every Third Merriweather Is Morbid, The Truth Is Not in the Delafields, All the Bufords Walk Like That, were simply guides to daily living."

After I finished, I carried my paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird around with me for weeks. I needed to stay in its thrall. I read random pages, sometimes aloud, and was instantly reinvigorated. around with me for weeks. I needed to stay in its thrall. I read random pages, sometimes aloud, and was instantly reinvigorated.

Novelist Mark Childress, who wrote Crazy in Alabama Crazy in Alabama, told me he reads To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird "as a refresher course" almost every year. "Every time I go back, I'm impressed more by the simplicity of the prose.... Although it's plainly written from the point of view of an adult, looking back through a child's eyes, there's something beautifully innocent about the point of view, and yet it's very wise." "as a refresher course" almost every year. "Every time I go back, I'm impressed more by the simplicity of the prose.... Although it's plainly written from the point of view of an adult, looking back through a child's eyes, there's something beautifully innocent about the point of view, and yet it's very wise."

Allan Gurga.n.u.s, author of The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and other novels, said of and other novels, said of his his rereading: "What's marvelous is that you see that sometimes the first things that happen to you are as big as they seemed. And, it's very moving to see what an evergreen and enduring achievement it's truly turned out to be." rereading: "What's marvelous is that you see that sometimes the first things that happen to you are as big as they seemed. And, it's very moving to see what an evergreen and enduring achievement it's truly turned out to be."

"AS R RELEVANT T TODAY AS THE D DAY I IT W WAS W WRITTEN"

My second reading of To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird was fifteen years ago. And then, like Scout, I decided to go exploring. I began looking into the novel's history, stature, and popularity. By any measure, it is an astonis.h.i.+ng phenomenon. An instant best seller, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a screen adaptation ranked one of the best of all time. Fifty years after its publication, it sells nearly a million copies every year-hundreds of thousands more than was fifteen years ago. And then, like Scout, I decided to go exploring. I began looking into the novel's history, stature, and popularity. By any measure, it is an astonis.h.i.+ng phenomenon. An instant best seller, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a screen adaptation ranked one of the best of all time. Fifty years after its publication, it sells nearly a million copies every year-hundreds of thousands more than The Catcher in Rye The Catcher in Rye, The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby, or Of Mice and Men Of Mice and Men, American cla.s.sics that also are staples of high school cla.s.srooms.

No other twentieth-century American novel is more widely read. Even British librarians, who were polled in 2006 and asked, "Which book should every adult read before they die?" voted To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird number one. The Bible was number two. Why? What is it about this novel, I asked everyone I interviewed. "I think people want to read something substantial," answered novelist Lee Smith, author of number one. The Bible was number two. Why? What is it about this novel, I asked everyone I interviewed. "I think people want to read something substantial," answered novelist Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls The Last Girls and eleven other books. "They want to have something to believe in, and and eleven other books. "They want to have something to believe in, and To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird manages to do that without being too preachy." manages to do that without being too preachy."

Until she retired from North Carolina State University, Smith taught To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird for twenty-five years. "Students are reading it today with the same responses we all had in the sixties," she said. "It still has a galvanizing effect on a young reader. This is a novel which for twenty-five years. "Students are reading it today with the same responses we all had in the sixties," she said. "It still has a galvanizing effect on a young reader. This is a novel which endures endures, as opposed to other cla.s.sics which don't appeal as much to readers today. The Sun Also Rises The Sun Also Rises is a good example, because students just say, 'Who are all these people drinking in Spain? What is this about?' You never get that reaction to is a good example, because students just say, 'Who are all these people drinking in Spain? What is this about?' You never get that reaction to To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird. It remains as relevant today as it was the day it was written. It never ages. It's a story of maturing, certainly, and initiation, but told in such beautifully specific terms that it never seems generic." It remains as relevant today as it was the day it was written. It never ages. It's a story of maturing, certainly, and initiation, but told in such beautifully specific terms that it never seems generic."

Novelist Wally Lamb, author of I Know This Much Is True I Know This Much Is True and and The Hour I First Believed The Hour I First Believed, told me he did not enjoy reading in high school. Then he found To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird in his sister's room. "I flipped it open and read the first couple of sentences and...two days later I, the pokiest reader I knew, had finished the book. It was the first time in my life that a book had captured me. That was exciting. I didn't realize that literature could do that." And when Lamb went on to teach high school in Connecticut, he saw his students respond the same way. "It was a book they read because they wanted to, not because they had to. It cast the same spell for my students as it had for me." in his sister's room. "I flipped it open and read the first couple of sentences and...two days later I, the pokiest reader I knew, had finished the book. It was the first time in my life that a book had captured me. That was exciting. I didn't realize that literature could do that." And when Lamb went on to teach high school in Connecticut, he saw his students respond the same way. "It was a book they read because they wanted to, not because they had to. It cast the same spell for my students as it had for me."

Winfrey was a young girl living with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when a librarian recommended To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. She remembered "just devouring it," and climbing right aboard the Scout bandwagon. "I wanted to be Scout, I thought I was Scout. I wanted an accent like Scout and a father like Atticus."

Who doesn't doesn't want a father like Atticus? Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Richard Russo did. "Atticus Finch was the father maybe that I longed for," he said. want a father like Atticus? Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Richard Russo did. "Atticus Finch was the father maybe that I longed for," he said.

Beyond being an ideal father, Atticus Finch is a folk hero to lawyers. When Scott Turow, a lawyer who became famous for writing novels about lawyers, read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird as a student in Chicago, "I promised myself that when I grew up and I was a man, I would try to do things just as good and n.o.ble as what Atticus had done for Tom Robinson." as a student in Chicago, "I promised myself that when I grew up and I was a man, I would try to do things just as good and n.o.ble as what Atticus had done for Tom Robinson."

Lest we forget, Atticus also is the best shot in the county. An understanding single father, an honest and humble lawyer, a respectful neighbor, Atticus is a paragon but never a caricature. "People want to believe in an idealized world, and that has an instructive moral function," Turow said. "It's true that there aren't many human beings in the world like Atticus Finch-perhaps none-but that doesn't mean that it's not worth striving to be like him."

Boo Radley loomed large in all my conversations. The house, and the mystery and suspense built up around it, was familiar territory.

"Boo Radley cannot be overestimated as an important factor in this book," Smith said. "Every neighborhood has that house that's overgrown and those neighbors that are weird or that you never ever, ever see. And stories grow up about them. That figure always occupies a place in a child's imagination. And to demystify that-to make us see that people so radically different from us are OK, and can be helpful and wonderful-this is so important."

"Boo Radley is now a phrase in the language, [as in] the block's Boo Radley," said Gurga.n.u.s. "Many people who haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird have that phrase in their lingo." Indeed, Boo Radley has entered not only our vernacular but also our yellow pages. Novelty stores, bars, and antiques dealers bear his name: Boo Radley's Store in Spokane; Boo Radley's Bar in Mobile, Boo Radley's Antiques in Los Angeles. have that phrase in their lingo." Indeed, Boo Radley has entered not only our vernacular but also our yellow pages. Novelty stores, bars, and antiques dealers bear his name: Boo Radley's Store in Spokane; Boo Radley's Bar in Mobile, Boo Radley's Antiques in Los Angeles.

"I AM A ALIVE, ALTHOUGH V VERY Q QUIET"-HARPER L LEE All of this despite an author who has done nothing to publicize her book for more than forty-five years. In 1993, Harper Lee wrote to her agent, "Although Mockingbird Mockingbird will be thirty-three this year, it has never been out of print and I am still alive, although very quiet." The same can be said seventeen years later. Still among us, at eighty-four, Nelle Harper Lee, who dropped her first name when she published, was born in the small town of Monroeville, Alabama, and moved to New York around 1948. She has divided her time between the two cities ever since. In 1964, Lee gave an interview to Roy Newquist of WQXR, a New York radio station, and said she was working on a second novel "and it goes slowly, ever so slowly." Since then, she has not given another full interview or published another book, only adding to her mystique. will be thirty-three this year, it has never been out of print and I am still alive, although very quiet." The same can be said seventeen years later. Still among us, at eighty-four, Nelle Harper Lee, who dropped her first name when she published, was born in the small town of Monroeville, Alabama, and moved to New York around 1948. She has divided her time between the two cities ever since. In 1964, Lee gave an interview to Roy Newquist of WQXR, a New York radio station, and said she was working on a second novel "and it goes slowly, ever so slowly." Since then, she has not given another full interview or published another book, only adding to her mystique.

Reverend Thomas Lane b.u.t.ts, the former pastor of Monroeville's First United Methodist Church, has been a friend of Lee's for more than twenty-five years. "Being famous and a celebrity is probably a lot of fun the first two or three months, but after you've been a celebrity for fifty years it gets old, I'm quite sure," he said. "She has controlled her own destiny. She doesn't have a PR person. She doesn't need one. I think she has led a happier life and certainly [a] more contented life because she has chosen how she has related to the public."

"It takes a kind of courage that almost n.o.body has in this country, where celebrity has replaced religion for a lot of people, to turn away from the church of publicity and say, 'I'm not going to pray there, I'm not going to appear there,'" Mark Childress said. "It's a kind of blasphemy in this society that she commits by refusing to partic.i.p.ate in the publicity machine."

Occasionally, Lee has made public appearances, usually to pick up awards. In 2007, she was at the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her picture has been taken, but she does not speak to the press. "A lot of people think that she's a recluse," said Reverend b.u.t.ts, "and that is absolutely untrue. She's a person who enjoys her privacy like any other citizen would."

Albeit a citizen who wrote a book that has made-and continues to make-a difference to generations of readers. Oprah Winfrey once met Harper Lee for lunch in New York, hoping to coax the author onto her talk show. "I knew twenty minutes into the conversation that I would never be able to convince her to do an interview," she recalled. Nevertheless, "we were like instant girlfriends," she said. "It was just wonderful, and I loved being with her."

In 2002, Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek Newsweek and Pulitzer Prizewinning biographer of Andrew Jackson, had a chance to talk with Lee when she accepted an honorary degree at the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, Meacham's alma mater. "I found her to be completely una.s.suming," he said, "and therefore all the more powerful for it." and Pulitzer Prizewinning biographer of Andrew Jackson, had a chance to talk with Lee when she accepted an honorary degree at the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, Meacham's alma mater. "I found her to be completely una.s.suming," he said, "and therefore all the more powerful for it."

[image]

Harper Lee, flanked by C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, November 5, 2007.

Courtesy of Alex Wong/Getty Images News.

READING A ALOUD.

When I began filming interviews with writers and readers, I asked everyone to read aloud a favorite pa.s.sage from the novel. In twenty-six interviews, only two pa.s.sages were chosen more than once. Reverend b.u.t.ts, Childress, Meacham, and Winfrey all chose the pa.s.sage in which Atticus leaves the courtroom. He has lost the case but is honored in defeat by the black community relegated to the balcony. Scout is among them, and Reverend Sykes instructs her, "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's pa.s.sing."

As she read, Oprah had tears in her eyes.

James McBride, the memoirist and novelist, and Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter and memoirist, chose to read from the book's beginning: When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were a.s.suaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pa.s.s and punt.When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading up 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.

McBride told me he read that pa.s.sage repeatedly when he was writing his memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. "This paragraph sets up the whole book," he said of Lee's opening. "It sets up the whole story. By speaking to the specific, the story of how her brother broke his arm, she speaks to the general problem of four hundred years of racism, slavery, socioeconomic cla.s.sism, problems between cla.s.ses, problems between people who have, people who don't, the courage of the working cla.s.s, the isolation of the South, the ident.i.ty crises of a young girl, and the coming out of a neighborhood recluse. All that in the story of her brother, who, when he was nearly thirteen, broke his arm."

McBride's memoir began, "When I was fourteen, my mother took up two new hobbies: riding a bicycle and playing the piano." I read that as an homage to the first sentence of To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird.

Bragg, who wrote All Over but the Shoutin' All Over but the Shoutin', a tribute to his his mother, grew up dirt-poor in Possum Trout, a tiny community in northern Alabama. He zeroed in on Lee's sentence "I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that." Bragg said, "Southern writers are always saying stuff to be profound, like mother, grew up dirt-poor in Possum Trout, a tiny community in northern Alabama. He zeroed in on Lee's sentence "I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that." Bragg said, "Southern writers are always saying stuff to be profound, like that's a quintessentially Southern phrase that's a quintessentially Southern phrase. But the truth is, down here, everything started long before that. That's just the way it is."

DEEPER T TRUTHS.

Each time another person agreed to be interviewed, I wondered if there was anything new to be said. Invariably, there was.

"Stories that deal with injustice are really powerful [in America]," suggested novelist James Patterson, who lists To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird as one of the only two books he enjoyed reading during high school in Newburgh, New York. "I think we have more of a sense of that than they do in some places where injustice is more a fact of life." as one of the only two books he enjoyed reading during high school in Newburgh, New York. "I think we have more of a sense of that than they do in some places where injustice is more a fact of life."

Rosanne Cash, the singer/songwriter and memoirist, thought the novel should be read as a parenting manual: "There's just this beautiful naturalness that [Atticus] has and sense of confidence in his own skill as a parent. And respect for the child, that mutual respect."

To Kill a Mockingbird's small-town setting is what stuck with NBC's Tom Brokaw, who grew up in small towns throughout South Dakota and knew "not just the pressures that [Atticus] was under, but the magnifying gla.s.s that he lived in. This all takes place in a very small environment. People who live in big cities don't have any idea of what the pressures can be like in a small town when there's something controversial going on."

When Allan Gurga.n.u.s read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, he "felt the permission to write about small-town life and the permission to feel that huge international drama, all the circ.u.mstances of truth, justice, and the American way, could be played out in a town of two thousand souls and could be played out by a single just man who stands up to be counted."

Meacham was impressed by the "moral ambiguity" of the novel's ending. "I think the courageous thing that Miss Lee did was end it on a tragic note. You would think in a novel like this, that's achieved this kind of status, it would be a very melodramatic tale of good and evil. Instead, it's a tale of good and evil that ends on a note of gray, which is where most of us live."

Historian McWhorter, who wrote Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, said, "For a white person from the South to write a book like this in the late 1950s is really unusual-by its very existence an act of protest."

"It was an act of protest, but it was an act of humanity," said Andrew Young, the former UN amba.s.sador, mayor of Atlanta, and veteran of the civil rights movement, who worked with Martin Luther King. "It was saying that we're not all like this. There are people who rise above their prejudices and even above the law."

Anna Quindlen, Lee Smith, and Adriana Trigiani, the novelist whose Big Stone Gap books are set in her Virginia hometown, all sang Scout's praises, each in a different verse. So did Lizzie Skurnick, who blogs about young adult books for Jezebel.com and is the author of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Cla.s.sics We Never Stopped Reading Shelf Discovery: The Teen Cla.s.sics We Never Stopped Reading, and David Kipen, former director of literature for the National Endowment for the Arts and supervisor of the NEA's Big Read program, which includes To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird.

I don't really give a rip about Atticus. He is fine, and he is a terrific dad. For me, this book is all about Scout. And I don't really care about anybody else in the book that much, except to the extent that they are nice to Scout and make life easier for Scout.-ANNA QUINDLENHere's Scout, who believes in things, who is funny and curious and pa.s.sionate and a tomboy. I think Scout has done more for Southern womanhood than any other character in literature.-LEE SMITHI craved the kind of life [Scout] had. She seemed to me to be fiercely independent; there seemed to be a streak of Pippi Longstocking in her, like she owned the town, and that appealed to me.-ADRIANA TRIGIANIScout struggles with things in a very genuine way. The second half of the novel, those grand themes of justice, injustice, those are about how the world acts on us. But Scout is really about who we are in the world, how we decide that.-LIZZIE SKURNICKShe's a scamp and hysterically funny, and no less funny as an adult looking back, although in a slightly more fermented and seasoned way. She's just great company.-DAVID KIPEN Richard Russo realized that the relations.h.i.+p between Scout and Atticus was burrowed deep within him. "It aided me in writing all of my father/daughter stuff, all my family stuff, because that is a quintessential American family, even though it's not typical."

As a young boy, Mark Childress read the novel on a porch in Monroeville, Alabama, where he, like Harper Lee, was born. "That was the first adult novel that I had ever read, and I was just about the age of Scout when I read it, and I was reading it in the setting where it happened. And it's the reason I'm a writer today. Something about seeing that ugly little town, which at that point had been sort of stripped of all of its charms, transformed into this magical thing that was in my hands."

Wally Lamb found To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird to be "a great course in how to write a novel." He pointed to Lee's "gorgeous" description of the town: to be "a great course in how to write a novel." He pointed to Lee's "gorgeous" description of the town: Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; gra.s.s grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules. .h.i.tched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talc.u.m.

Lamb said, "It is a one-paragraph course on writing, those tactile sensations, that's real writing. That's literature."

The "literature" question came up again, this time in the pages of the New Yorker New Yorker in May 2006. In his review of in May 2006. In his review of Mockingbird Mockingbird, an unauthorized biography of Harper Lee by Charles s.h.i.+elds, Thomas Mallon dismissed Atticus as "a plaster saint" and Scout as "a highly constructed doll, feisty and cute on every subject from algebra to grown-ups." Mallon allowed that, "Indisputably, much in the novel works," but complained of "occasionally clumsy sentences," and also wrote that Horton Foote's screen adaptation was "rather better than the original material."

When I asked McWhorter about Mallon's essay, she responded directly to Mallon. "How many cities have read your books?" she asked.

McBride was even more exercised about Mallon's criticism. "Whoever this guy is, whatever this schmoo is, they're not going to be reading his his book in fifty years. People are going to be reading Harper Lee in this country as long as they draw oxygen. It is a great book now, it was a great book yesterday, and it will be a great book tomorrow." book in fifty years. People are going to be reading Harper Lee in this country as long as they draw oxygen. It is a great book now, it was a great book yesterday, and it will be a great book tomorrow."

Scott Turow was perplexed. "I just think the grace of the writing is substantial, and I am confounded by people who attack it as a work of literature. I think it is a beautifully written and structured book. Is it sentimental? Yes, it's sentimental, but so was Steinbeck, and people still read Steinbeck."

Russo, a former professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, offered, "Back when I was teaching, I use to remind my students that masterpieces are masterpieces not because they are flawless but because they've tapped into something essential to us, at the heart of who we are and how we live."

By the time Mallon was asked if he would discuss any of this with me, his hate mail had piled up considerably. He said no, he was not going to be the skunk at that garden party.

THE F FINCHES OF M MAYCOMB; THE L LEES OF M MONROEVILLE.

That garden party will go forever in To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird's Maycomb, where Mrs. Dubose's camellias are in bloom, Miss Maudie's mimosas are as fragrant as ever, and wisteria drips all over the porch. Children roam freely, dewberry tarts are served, and ap.r.o.ns are starched. Confederate pistols are hidden, schools and churches are segregated, and Sundays are for visiting. The fictional Maycomb bears more than a pa.s.sing resemblance to the landscape of the town where the novelist grew up during the Depression. "Monroevillians who read the book will see familiar names. Some events and situations are tinged with local color," said an editorial in the Monroe Journal Monroe Journal in June 1960. in June 1960.

Monroeville is set on a square with a courthouse in the middle. That is where Harper Lee has said that she, as Scout did in the novel, spent time in the balcony watching her own lawyer father, Amasa Coleman Lee (often called A.C.) at work. "Few people live to be 80 years old and then have their name changed," the Journal Journal reported, "that is what has happened to a prominent Monroeville attorney. A. C. Lee is now being called Atticus Finch." Finch was the maiden name of A.C.'s wife and Harper Lee's mother, Frances. reported, "that is what has happened to a prominent Monroeville attorney. A. C. Lee is now being called Atticus Finch." Finch was the maiden name of A.C.'s wife and Harper Lee's mother, Frances.

[image]

Harper Lee poses for Life Life magazine in the balcony of the old courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama, May 1961. magazine in the balcony of the old courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama, May 1961.

Courtesy of Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

In 1961, when she was photographed in the balcony of the Monroe County Courthouse by Life Life, Lee told the magazine, "The trial was a composite of all the trials in the world-some in the South. But the courthouse was this one. My father was a lawyer, so I grew up in this room and mostly watched him from here. My father is one of the few men I've known with genuine humility, and it lends him a natural dignity. He has absolutely no ego drive, and so he was one of the most beloved men in this part of the state."