Part 6 (1/2)

I took took To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird out of the library at Holy Child Academy, where I went to school through eighth grade. But I can't exactly remember what year it was or how old I was. out of the library at Holy Child Academy, where I went to school through eighth grade. But I can't exactly remember what year it was or how old I was.

I totally remember the experience. It's just all these people in this town, and you are visiting and you stay, and then at the end, you can't believe that you have to leave, and then sooner or later, you go back again and revisit them all over again. To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is probably in the top three of books like that, where you utterly live in the book, and walk around in the book, and know everyone down to the ground in the book, and then leave, and then inevitably come back. I can't imagine anyone I like reading is probably in the top three of books like that, where you utterly live in the book, and walk around in the book, and know everyone down to the ground in the book, and then leave, and then inevitably come back. I can't imagine anyone I like reading To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird and then not rereading it. and then not rereading it.

I've realized over the years that I have a completely different orientation toward the book than most people do, because at some essential level early on, and even as I got older, I don't really give a rip about Atticus. I mean, he is fine and he is a terrific dad and he does a wonderful thing, and so on and so forth.

But 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. I love Calpurnia because of Scout. I really like Jem and feel like I know him because of Scout. I'm totally perplexed by and sort of furious at Atticus when he has their aunt move in, who is just a heinous creature and is clearly there to get Scout to wear a skirt and wash her face, because I so don't want her to do anything like that. I think one of the reasons I became so obsessed with Harper Lee, when I was older and knew more about her biography, is because everything that she did convinced me that she was just a grown-up Scout who hadn't gone over to the dark side of being a girlie girl.

I looked over the book again about three months ago. It's still always about Scout to me because there really aren't that many of those girls. There were hardly any of those girls in our real life, and there aren't that many of them in books. So you store them up as a hedge against the attempts of the world to make you into something else.

Scout is totally real and totally imperfect, and she has the best two words in the book and two of the best words that have ever been put into any book by any writer: ”Hey, Boo.” There are moments in books that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, and ”Hey, Boo” is one of those moments.

There are some women that you like, but they don't quite get the Scout thing. I remember being with a group of women once, talking about Little Women Little Women and asking about the characters, ”Which one were you?” Every time someone would say Amy, my shoulders would sort of go up. And you do encounter that thing with and asking about the characters, ”Which one were you?” Every time someone would say Amy, my shoulders would sort of go up. And you do encounter that thing with To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird sometimes-people who just don't get Scout. I remember once someone telling me that they thought Scout was a peripheral character, and I was shocked out of my skin. They really thought Atticus was the centerpiece of the book, and it just isn't true. sometimes-people who just don't get Scout. I remember once someone telling me that they thought Scout was a peripheral character, and I was shocked out of my skin. They really thought Atticus was the centerpiece of the book, and it just isn't true.

There is that wonderful scene in the cla.s.sroom where they have that new teacher who is very much the girlie girl, the one who tells her that Atticus taught her to read wrong and who then flips out because the cootie climbs out of the Ewell boy's hair. Scout just keeps trying to pa.r.s.e the world for this poor woman, to make her understand. She is much more like Atticus in some ways than Jem is, because you can tell there is this roving intelligence.

You can tell she is a writer, because she sees so much stuff. That moment when she is rolling down the hill in the tire and she hits the Radley house, and she hears the laugh from inside, but she sort of keeps it to herself for a long time. She can't even tell the people who are reading the book that she heard it. That is a writerly detail.

I feel like a lightning bolt is going to come through the ceiling, but I have to say that To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird isn't a writerly book. There are not a whole lot of verbal pyrotechnics. It's not a Southern novel in that way. When we think of the cla.s.sic southern novels, we think of Faulkner, for example: detail upon detail and metaphor upon metaphor. This is a pretty plainly told story. It reminds you of that old saw that editors tell reporters: If you've got a story to tell, tell it; if you don't have a story to tell, write it. She's got a story to tell, so she doesn't have to use verbal pyrotechnics. There are some small moments when she lets the writing bring the way the street looks or the town looks into sharper focus. But just look at the way, for example, she describes the ham costume, which has always been, to me, kind of a Rosetta Stone. Scout isn't dressed up like Bo Peep or an antebellum Southern girl. She is dressed like a ham, and the description is as basic as can be. [Mrs. Crenshaw, the local seamstress] molds chicken wire, puts canvas over it, and paints it. The fact is, you totally get it. You can see that ham in your mind's eye. So she does not make the writing do the work. She lets the story do the work. One of the interesting things is, for example, that the prose could not be more different than Capote's prose, which is so fulsome that sometimes when you are reading isn't a writerly book. There are not a whole lot of verbal pyrotechnics. It's not a Southern novel in that way. When we think of the cla.s.sic southern novels, we think of Faulkner, for example: detail upon detail and metaphor upon metaphor. This is a pretty plainly told story. It reminds you of that old saw that editors tell reporters: If you've got a story to tell, tell it; if you don't have a story to tell, write it. She's got a story to tell, so she doesn't have to use verbal pyrotechnics. There are some small moments when she lets the writing bring the way the street looks or the town looks into sharper focus. But just look at the way, for example, she describes the ham costume, which has always been, to me, kind of a Rosetta Stone. Scout isn't dressed up like Bo Peep or an antebellum Southern girl. She is dressed like a ham, and the description is as basic as can be. [Mrs. Crenshaw, the local seamstress] molds chicken wire, puts canvas over it, and paints it. The fact is, you totally get it. You can see that ham in your mind's eye. So she does not make the writing do the work. She lets the story do the work. One of the interesting things is, for example, that the prose could not be more different than Capote's prose, which is so fulsome that sometimes when you are reading Other Voices, Other Rooms Other Voices, Other Rooms, you think, Oh please! Just pull back 20 percent for me. Oh please! Just pull back 20 percent for me. She has pulled all the way back to the bare bones of story and character-mainly character, I think. She has pulled all the way back to the bare bones of story and character-mainly character, I think.

I don't think Truman Capote had anything to do with To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. Come on, think of how he would have ginned up all kinds of scenes in that book. There is just no way, to my way of thinking. You know, just by reading To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, that Harper Lee, who is obviously Scout, is a person with a grounded self-esteem, surrounded by affection. Whereas you have that horrible moment where her hideous second cousin, Francis, the one that she beats up and calls a wh.o.r.e-lady with no idea what that means, says something terrible about Dill, who is based on the boy Truman Capote. He says he doesn't come to visit in the summer. His mother doesn't want him and she pa.s.ses him around from person to person, and you think, Oh, that little boy is going to be in real trouble Oh, that little boy is going to be in real trouble, and, of course, that little boy was.

There is a trancelike aspect to the whole thing. Those people become more real than real people are. It's what you are aiming for when you're writing a novel, that you'll feel like the characters are more real than the people you eat dinner with every night. And the other thing that is so incredibly engaging about it is that it feels true. Sometimes people will say, ”Well, I don't like the ending to this book or that book because it makes me sad or it wasn't satisfactory.” In this book, you know where it's going to end, because you know what the true thing would be to have happened. The way things play out in the courtroom and then the way things play out that night when Scout is walking home in the ham costume, which is incredibly terrifying, and then the resolution of the Radley story, which is about as affecting as any story line that you can imagine. Every kid has had that house in the neighborhood that your friends would dare you to knock at on Halloween. The idea that the person in that house is not a monster but a prisoner is so beautifully wrought in this book that I think you're just totally present in it the whole time you are reading it. At that moment when she says ”Hey, Boo” and her father says, ”Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley”-it doesn't get any better than that.

This book is filled with the use of the word n.i.g.g.e.r n.i.g.g.e.r. I mean, it is in here over and over again, and somehow, it stays off the banned book list. [To Kill a Mockingbird is often challenged, however. It is number 23 on the American Library a.s.sociation's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books.] I haven't seen the kind of uproar [as for is often challenged, however. It is number 23 on the American Library a.s.sociation's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books.] I haven't seen the kind of uproar [as for Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn], and I think it is because the relations.h.i.+p between the white people and the black people in the book is so true, not to the understanding of white people, but to the understanding of black people. There is nothing condescending about it. There is that moment when Calpurnia takes them to church and people are saying they have their own church, don't bring them to our church, and Calpurnia says, well, you know, I'm taking care of them, or they are my children, or something like that, and one of the women says, is that what you call what you do during the week? To make clear: OK, we all know there is a pecking order here, and language is harsh, and the way they characterize each other is harsh, but the truth surmounts the harshness, in a way. It doesn't blunt it. It justifies it.

I think there are certain books in which the characters are so real and so vivid that you feel as though they've become close personal friends. And that goes a long way to explaining why books last.

That's the reason why A Tree Grows in Brooklyn A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which in many ways could feel quite antiquated, still sells every year, because Francie is somebody that readers feel as though they know, and so they revisit her over and over again.

I think there is no question that that's true of this book. It is also a tremendous teaching tool. If I were teaching eighth graders and I wanted to talk about prejudice and doing the right thing and doing the hard thing and what it means to be female and what it means to be a citizen, this is on the top three or four. So it keeps coming around again in that way. And I think there are also books that give you a feeling about your possible best self, and this is one of those books. A Wrinkle in Time A Wrinkle in Time is one of those books. is one of those books. Little Women Little Women is one of those books, and this is definitely one of those books. That sense of being part of something that calls upon the best that people can be-that's really exciting and satisfying, and that gets you in the gut. is one of those books, and this is definitely one of those books. That sense of being part of something that calls upon the best that people can be-that's really exciting and satisfying, and that gets you in the gut.

People tend to dismiss books in which the centerpieces are children or young adults. I think it is very easy to slot this into the Young Adult category like some of the other books that I've mentioned. I just think that's stupid. You can call The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye a young-adult novel all you want, but it's still going to speak to this new generation of readers. a young-adult novel all you want, but it's still going to speak to this new generation of readers.

The difference between The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye and and To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is, is, The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye usually doesn't survive adulthood. I've known some people who've gone back and read it and thought, usually doesn't survive adulthood. I've known some people who've gone back and read it and thought, This was my favorite book when I was sixteen. What was I thinking? This was my favorite book when I was sixteen. What was I thinking? I don't know anybody who feels that way about I don't know anybody who feels that way about To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. You come back to it and you are still just sucked right into it. You know, you are sucked into it in a completely different way as an adult than you were as a kid because you understand what Atticus is facing as what was not then called the single parent. You are sucked right back in it. By the way, in his own times, d.i.c.kens's work was denigrated all the time because it was popular. I love the literary tradition that suggests that if something is popular, it can't really be first-rate. Give me a break.

I know a fair amount about Harper Lee. Every year or two, when I was a young reporter, I used to put in a formal request to interview Harper Lee. As a writer, there were a couple of things that obsessed me about her. There are lots of writers who have one great book in them; most of them write seven or eight. I was drawn to the notion of a woman who wrote one great book and then packed it in, for whatever reason. There are different theories about why she did so, but I loved that idea. The second thing was that as someone who has been on both sides of the yawning maw of the publicity machine, who has both interviewed countless authors and been interviewed many, many times, I love the fact that she wouldn't play. Every time I got turned down for an interview, there was part of me that thought, Oh yeah! Oh yeah! I gathered that HarperCollins had a very polite nice boilerplate letter that they sent to hundreds or thousands of us over the years, and I got it a couple of times. I gathered that HarperCollins had a very polite nice boilerplate letter that they sent to hundreds or thousands of us over the years, and I got it a couple of times.

Look-a million times, I've been asked with each of my books, ”Are you going to write a sequel to Black and Blue Black and Blue? Are you going to write a sequel to Blessings Blessings?” Can you imagine the pressure on Harper Lee to write a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird once the movie came out and you could see that it kept selling every year? They just must have thrown rose petals and chocolates and millions of dollars at her feet, and I don't know whether she couldn't do it, but I prefer to think she wouldn't do it because, of course, it's utterly wrong. once the movie came out and you could see that it kept selling every year? They just must have thrown rose petals and chocolates and millions of dollars at her feet, and I don't know whether she couldn't do it, but I prefer to think she wouldn't do it because, of course, it's utterly wrong.

Richard Russo Richard Russo was born in Johnstown, New York, in 1949. He is the author of seven novels, including Mohawk Mohawk (1986); (1986); n.o.body's Fool n.o.body's Fool (1993); (1993); Empire Falls Empire Falls (2002), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; and (2002), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; and That Old Cape Magic That Old Cape Magic (2009). He is a screenwriter and retired professor. (2009). He is a screenwriter and retired professor.

The first time I read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, I don't think I finished it, and the reason I didn't finish it was that at the time I would have been in high school. And at that time, I had what was a hard-and-fast rule, which was to read everything I could get my hands on except what was a.s.signed to me. It was Catholic school, and I was in that rebellious frame of mind that if somebody else wanted me to read it, it was probably c.r.a.p.

So I went into To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird with that notion that it was like the other books that the nuns wanted me to read. So I remember reading and reluctantly thinking, with that notion that it was like the other books that the nuns wanted me to read. So I remember reading and reluctantly thinking, This is really good This is really good, but I couldn't admit to it. I couldn't admit it to them; I couldn't admit it to myself.

There was that father/daughter relations.h.i.+p, which burrowed under my skin even then. Those of us who become writers are becoming writers long before we ever put pen to paper. In Great Expectations Great Expectations, which I didn't finish either, because it too had been a.s.signed, there was something about the opening scenes of that book where Pip and Magwitch come together. There was something that burrowed into me there-a way in which you can be ashamed of someone you love, the way Joe Gargery is. That relations.h.i.+p between Joe Gargery and Pip really burrowed underneath, because I had a father who was largely absent, and when he came back, it was a small town and everybody wanted to know why my father didn't live with us. So there was something about the opening of Great Expectations Great Expectations that burrowed very, very deep. that burrowed very, very deep.

To Kill a Mockingbird was that way, even though I didn't finish the book, even though I was stubbornly a teenager. In some way it probably frightened me, something about that book frightened me. I look back on it now in the way in which you are becoming a writer and certain books influence you. It's hard to imagine was that way, even though I didn't finish the book, even though I was stubbornly a teenager. In some way it probably frightened me, something about that book frightened me. I look back on it now in the way in which you are becoming a writer and certain books influence you. It's hard to imagine Empire Falls Empire Falls being written without being written without To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, because I don't think Tick could have existed without Scout-something about that father/daughter relations.h.i.+p. When I came back to it as an adult, a lot of the way I felt about my daughters and the way in which they were going about in the world, the way Scout does, is there.

Scout loves her father, but the truth is, young people are to a certain extent on their own, and they're learning about life through their own eyes and own experiences.

And in the best father/daughter relations.h.i.+p there are going to be huge areas of their lives that you don't have access to, you're not privy to; you weren't there. And a lot of people always ask me, ”Why did you give that beautiful child in your novel the name of an ugly bug?” I always tell them, ”I wanted a name as memorable for this character in my book as Scout is memorable in To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird.”

I went back and read it and, of course, recognized it for the masterpiece that it was. And 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.

Atticus Finch, in some ways, was the father maybe that I longed for. But when I became a father, I found it very difficult to be that kind of father. I have found it impossible not to tell my daughters how much I love them at every juncture. Atticus is reserved. He trusts his daughter. He trusts his daughter to understand what is essential about him and about herself and about their relations.h.i.+p. I could never have gone about it that way, and yet there was some part of me that knew as a father that less would have been more. I think Atticus knew that and was able to act upon it as a principle. That great ability to trust a child and that great ability to understand that a child will know in the fullness of time what it is that you're trying to get across. And that what you do, even more than what you say, will be all that that child ultimately will need. I didn't have that great faith he seems to have in that book.

Back when I was teaching, I used 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.

Writing, it seems to me, is often taught, from the time that we're in grade school, as the absence of mistakes-when you get your first papers back, and you have a little X that's an error, another X that's an error. Right up through college, I remember being taught that way, that careless errors, the difference between T-H-E-I-R and T-H-E-R-E-you get counted off for that.

And so every time you get a little check, then, you have lost points. And I lost points. But somehow you never gained gained points. You started off with a hundred points, and then for every mistake that you made, you lost points. If you're trying to teach fiction writing or any kind of decent writing, any kind of real writing to students, the first thing you have to do is get them out of that frame of mind whereby you lose points for mistakes. points. You started off with a hundred points, and then for every mistake that you made, you lost points. If you're trying to teach fiction writing or any kind of decent writing, any kind of real writing to students, the first thing you have to do is get them out of that frame of mind whereby you lose points for mistakes.

I think To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is like is like Moby-d.i.c.k Moby-d.i.c.k, in a sense; it's not like you can't find things wrong with it. When I read it as an adult, I remember thinking there were pa.s.sages of exposition that I would have done differently. Or there were pa.s.sages that were maybe a little bit clunky in terms of its style, although parts of it are just incredibly graceful, wonderfully graceful.

Great books are not flawless books. Look at the ending to Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn, maybe the great American novel-it is a huge misstep. You cannot imagine Twain taking them on that journey down the Mississippi and then somehow reverting into Tom Sawyer Tom Sawyer land at the end. It's a betrayal of everything that he had done earlier in the book. It's a flaw, but so what? The thing about writing is, you're not looking for an absence of errors. You're not looking for a pristine slate. You're not looking for things to be perfect, but something has to hit you where you live. land at the end. It's a betrayal of everything that he had done earlier in the book. It's a flaw, but so what? The thing about writing is, you're not looking for an absence of errors. You're not looking for a pristine slate. You're not looking for things to be perfect, but something has to hit you where you live.

There's one of those columns in Newsweek Newsweek or or Time Time-a writer talks about five books that were tremendously important, and then, What's a book that you've reread that didn't stand up? And someone, I can't remember who, named To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, and I remember thinking, Whoa, maybe you need to read it again. Whoa, maybe you need to read it again. Because that book holds up the way great books do. They just touch you in that very deep place. Because that book holds up the way great books do. They just touch you in that very deep place.

For me it had something to do with that father/daughter relations.h.i.+p. It had something to do with a time when we really believed in justice-the necessity of justice as a part of our lives, the possibility of trying to make a just world. All of that was incredibly powerful. I think it's an indispensable book.

Whenever a writer is gifted enough and fortunate enough to write a book as good as that, you can't help but think, What else? What else? Maybe that's the fallacy. Maybe it's a fallacy to think that if you could write a book that good, you must have had seven or eight others in you just like it. Maybe that's the fallacy. Maybe it's a fallacy to think that if you could write a book that good, you must have had seven or eight others in you just like it.

There's a line of logic that suggests, if you can do it once, then maybe you can do it again or again and again and again. d.i.c.kens wrote one novel, one great novel right after another. I know when I read a book like To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird and realize there's only one, I feel a deep sinking feeling as a result of that. The one was a gift and you'd be pretty careless to say you deserve more. But some part of you does think, and realize there's only one, I feel a deep sinking feeling as a result of that. The one was a gift and you'd be pretty careless to say you deserve more. But some part of you does think, Why not more? Why not more?

When somebody writes To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, you just hope they're happy.

Lizzie Skurnick Lizzie Skurnick was born in New York in 1973. She 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 (2009) and is the Fine Lines columnist for Jezebel.com, where she writes about young-adult cla.s.sics. A contributor to NPR, the (2009) and is the Fine Lines columnist for Jezebel.com, where she writes about young-adult cla.s.sics. A contributor to NPR, the New York Times, New York Times, and the and the Daily Beast, Daily Beast, she has written books for three young-adult series, Sweet Valley, Love Stories, and Alias. she has written books for three young-adult series, Sweet Valley, Love Stories, and Alias.

I read read To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird in cla.s.s. I remember the edition. It was the yellow paperback with no ill.u.s.tration on the cover, just in cla.s.s. I remember the edition. It was the yellow paperback with no ill.u.s.tration on the cover, just To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird in big block type and ”Harper Lee.” I think it was probably the first novel that I ever read that fully inhabited a girl's consciousness in a very immediate and complicated way. in big block type and ”Harper Lee.” I think it was probably the first novel that I ever read that fully inhabited a girl's consciousness in a very immediate and complicated way.

I thought Scout was a boy for a page and a half. I was a very fast reader, and I wasn't paying attention at some key part. I remember being thrilled when I realized it was a girl, but also very surprised, because I hadn't read a lot of novels with girl protagonists who weren't in hoop skirts and riding out West. I didn't know the Southern girl tomboy. I didn't really understand that genre of a prep.u.b.escent girl-and the novel is not about her growing s.e.xuality, so that was also a new thing to me.

I think it took me awhile to really locate what kind of a character Scout was, because she is also a ”character” in the best sense of the word. Generally speaking, a young girl in such circ.u.mstances is sort of s.p.u.n.ky or someone you're supposed to side with, someone who is going to have interesting adventures.

Scout is all those things, but it's a dark, lonely novel from the beginning, in its own way. Scout is not a happy girl setting off on the prairie. Her life is very complex. She doesn't have a mother. Her father is an interesting man, but he's not like Pa in Little House on the Prairie Little House on the Prairie. He doesn't set her on his knee and play the violin all night, he doesn't buy them tin cups and put pennies in them.