Fiction

I really liked it. I think, with a bit more editing, it could have been a masterpiece. Very powerful.

I'm really surprised that more people here aren't discussing this book. In many ways it's much more complex than TKAM and so timely. After reading it, I'm starting to think that some of the concerns about Harper Lee's condition, and the debate over whether she was coerced to publish, reek of condescension. I can totally see why she would want it published now. I'm glad she lived to see it.

I have to wonder if the editor who encouraged her to turn this into TKAM didn't do so partly because a male "white savior" protagonist was more marketable and palatable to the white audience of that time. Don't get me wrong, I love Mockingbird and I'm glad it exists but I wish this novel hadn't been scrapped in the process. I'm glad Nelle Harper Lee finally got to be the hero in her own life story.

Spoilers ahead:

I see a lot of people saying this novel ruins the Atticus of TKAM and is inconsistent with his portrayal in that novel. I don't think that is true at all. GSAW has made me realize that Atticus was always a more complex man than we saw in TKAM and that, in fact, some of that complexity was evident even then. GSAW just exposes the dark underbelly of the "polite" southern middle class. I've experienced that with my own southern relatives-known people as a child who were warm and kind and fair and then later heard words come out of their mouths that made me want to vomit.

The Calpurnia scene was amazing and I wish that had been explored more. I saw a discussion about this on a GSAW review article in which people were saying that didn't ring true because Calpurnia loved Scout and wouldn't have changed that drastically. I thought it was one of the truest moments in the book because Calpurnia had her own family, children and grandchildren, whose lives were being deeply effected, even threatened, by the activities of the Citizen's Council and their ilk.

One of the really fascinating aspects of this book, for me, was all the discussion about class differences and the frequent use of the term "trash" and "white trash." I actually have so many thoughts on this that I am having a hard time processing and articulating them so I'll save that for another post if anyone is interested.