To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Book Review)

To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

299 pages
J. B. Lippincott & Co. / July 1960

fiction

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My Rating: ★★★★

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"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."

Review: Let me start by saying I've never read this book. I was never assigned it in school and it just never struck me as a book I wanted to read. After having absorbed it so thoroughly now, I can't imagine why. I saw the movie almost two decades ago so the actors were not in my mind as I read this book. I can tell you I will make it a point to see the movie now.

Starting this book I went into it wanting to know the reason for the title. Why the title over so many others? It's so obvious yet so complex in so many levels I can easily see why this book can be discussed from an elementary school level up and through college. I guess that's what makes a classic a classic? When a novel can stand the test of time and still be relevant material today. While our court system has much improved since the time of this book, it still serves as a stark reminder of where we were as a society and how far we've come. I'm sure many would use this book to argue we have not come as far as we'd like to think.

In short, this book starts and ends in the same place, being narrated by Scout, remembering a moment in her family's life that would forever change all parties involved. It was the 1930's and her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer, was put on a case to defend a Negro accused of raping a young woman whose family, although white, happen to be one of the lower classes. The Ewell's are, for lack of better words, uneducated white trash. But that doesn't stop the town from believing her story, no matter how hard Atticus tries and succeeds in proving his case that the Negro, Tom Robinson, is innocent. It makes no difference to the minds of those white men in the jury box (women were not permitted to serve as jurors back then). There was no way they would side with a Negro over a white man or woman. Even if the evidence showed that girls father, a known drunk to the entire town, was the one who beat her to near death. But I'm telling too much of the story. The trial doesn't even really make an appearance until the last third of the book because it leads to what causes Jem to suffer a broken elbow. 

The book starts with Scout telling the story of how Jem, her older brother, got his injury. But it also includes the story of a man whom she & her brother have never seen but have heard stories about. That man is Boo Radley. Arthur if we're to be formal about it. 

There are many heroes in this book that I can count on multiple hands. But in order for them to be considered heroes there must be an almost equal amount of evil they fend off as well. I suppose many would say there was only one real evil in this book, old man Ewell. But look closer, if you've read it or plan to someday, and you'll find more. There are different degrees of doing good and doing bad. Atticus is a single parent trying to teach his children best he can, just how to see those differences in everyone.

Great book. I'd read it again. I'd recommend it as well.

Summary: Lawyer Atticus Finch defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic, Puliter Prize-winning novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white woman. Through the eyes of Atticus's children, Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unanswering honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930's.

Winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Fiction.

If you want to learn more about Harper Lee please visit this site.