Mrs. Miriam Irby Reviews
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Philadelphia Lippincott 1960
The author describes this book as “a love story pure and simple.” Let it be said immediately that there are mor meanings to the word love than the romantic one, and it is these other meanings that Harper lee portrays in To Kill a Mockingbird.
It is written out of her love for small town life in the South, with its paradoxical cruelty and generosity. It is about the love of a father for his children, and the love they returned in full measure. It is concerned with the dictatorial yet protective love of a young boy for his younger sister, and the clear-eyed often exasperating adoration she gave in return. It is about a love of justice, of courtesy, of good will, of integrity that distinguished a person of “quality”,--cropping out in unexpected circumstances and unlikely people and without which even the best are born “trash.”
Maycomb, Alabama, might be any small town where “nobody hurried because there was nowhere to do,” an easy going yet narrow-minded community with its assortment of accepted eccentrics, a proclivity for gossip, and the usual blind defense of the status quo. The action revolves around the Finch family: Atticus, a 50-year-old lawyer and State legislator; his two children Jem and Scout; Calpurnia, his negro cook and indispensable member of the household who holds the motherless children to “quality” standards with warm-hearted indulgence; and Atticus’ sister, “Alexandra, who comes with her boarding school manners to live with the family in the hope of turning tomboy Scout toward ladylike ways. Eight-year old Scout Finch is the narrator, reflecting in maturity on the events of the 1930’s.
There is a tightly knit plot, dialogue refreshing in its authenticity and swift revelation of personality, humor, and a warm understanding unusual in any author’s first book.
From page 4 of The Jones County Journal, August 18, 1960. A review of the book without a single word about the trial.
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