The Book

Quick Facts:

• Lee submitted a draft of Go Set a Watchmen to her literary agent, Maurice Crain, in 1957.

• Crain offered the manuscript to the J.B. Lippincott publishing company's Tay Hohoff, who saw promise in the writer and the story, but not in its present form.

• The story was published in July of 1960 under the new title, To Kill a Mockingbird, after a multi-year process of re-writing the original draft and back and forth with Hohoff.

• The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961.

• It remains a best-seller with over 40 million copies sold and has been translated into more than 30 languages.

  • As recently as December, 2021 - 60 years after its initial publication - it was selected by readers of the New York Times as the best book of the past 125 years.

• The book takes place over approximately 3 years, during which Scout ages from about 6 years old, to 9 years of age (1933 - 1935).

• Maycomb is a fictional location, allowing it to stand in as a kind of every-town during the the Great Depression in the Jim Crow South.

Critical Analysis and Impact:

The novel has received nearly universal praise from the moment of its publishing that continues more or less unabated to this day. Given the lack of a second effort, until the highly controversial publication of Go Set a Watchmen in 2015, there had been some speculation that her more prolific childhood friend and fellow writer Truman Capote had authored or at least contributed to the writing of To Kill a Mockingbird. However, forensic literary analysis done by a Polish academic team employing stylometirc analysis revealed the work to be conclusively Lee's; this augmented the discovery of a letter from Capote in which he recounts liking the novel. However, the same study also found that Truman may have had a close edit of the first few chapters of the novel.

Though Lee reportedly bristled at the reduction of a "coming-of-age" story, it is the often used (and accurate) shorthand for the books structure: launched by the adult Jean-Louise's conversation with her brother, the narrative quickly slips behind the eyes of the narrators younger self, where it remains fairly consistently. The memory-architecture of the play as well as its direct address, makes this nostalgic, personal journey all the more apparent.

Despite its overwhelming success, the book has also been banned. Initially, as early as 1966 in Hanover county Virginia, it was banned for being "immoral" and its dealing with a sexual crime. In more recent history, teachers in Mukilteo county have protested it's inclusion on the required reading list for 9th graders because it valorizes the "white savior" complex, makes frequent use of the n-word without ever contextualizing the word or its history of harm, and doesn't fully realize the complexity of its Black characters. (ref)

Interesting Ideas and Questions:

It is interesting to consider the fate of Tom Robinson through a modern lens. The book seems to suggest that, unconvinced of the legal system's ability to provide him justice, Robinson attempted to flee from prison and was gunned down in the process. However, given our contemporary understanding of the penitentiary system, the threat of extra-judicial violence present in the book, and the lack of a reliable first-hand account, there is perhaps room to doubt the details of this account.

Sources:

• For More on the relationship of Lee and Hohoff: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/books/the-invisible-hand-behind-harper-lees-to-kill-a-mockingbird.html

• For a general critical analysis: https://literariness.org/2018/06/10/analysis-of-harper-lees-to-kill-a-mockingbird/

• For more on the history of To Kill a Mockingbird as a banned book: https://www.history.com/news/why-to-kill-a-mockingbird-keeps-getting-banned

• Other works by Harper Lee: https://www.vulture.com/2015/02/read-harper-lees-5-great-nonfiction-pieces.html

• For more on pop references to To Kill a Mockingbird, demonstrating how pervasive it has been in our culture: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-jc-to-kill-a-mockingbird-pop-culture-20150707-story.html