To Kill a Mockingbird
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A Classroom of Atticus F., G., and H.
It has been a bad summer for the iconic characters of Southern literature. Over at the Paris Review, Sadie Stein takes a look at the unfortunate facts: Atticus was kind of a racist, and Atticus is the most popular male baby…
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It’s Okay that You Haven’t Read Finnegans Wake (Really)
Over at Hazlitt, Sarah Galo and Elon Green have cornered a handful of authors, from Renata Adler to Celeste Ng, into admitting their literary gaps, from Finnegans Wake to To Kill a Mockingbird. Something we should keep in mind is that…
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Complements to the Canon
Vann R. Newkirk II (@fivefifths) writes for Seven Scribes on the experience of discovering novels by black writers to act as a necessary complement to reading Harper Lee’s reductive portrayals of race in Mockingbird and Watchman: These books, this canon, represented…
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The Editor Who Shaped Mockingbird
We’ll never know how Harper Lee’s editor, Therese von Hohoff Torrey, would have felt about the publication of Go Set A Watchman, because she died in 1974. But probably, she wouldn’t be excited about it: As Ms. Hohoff saw it, the…
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Lee’s “Parent Novel” Completes Manuscript Family
According to a recent account by Harper Lee’s lawyer, the famed author wrote a third manuscript that may be a “parent novel” that “bridges” To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman together. The manuscript was discovered in Lee’s safe-deposit box, and is…
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Going Beyond To Kill A Mockingbird
High school reading lists are notoriously white and male, exposing students to only a narrow perspective on the world and making it hard for kids to relate to what they read. Many schools are taking the initiative to add more…
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Leave Harper Alone
The mysterious buzz surrounding the upcoming release of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman, has had readers and journalists speculating about the elderly author’s mental capabilities in a manner often invasive and disrespectful. Lee answered a particularly nosy…
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Harper Lee Debate Rages On
Since the announcement of Harper Lee’s forthcoming novel Go Set a Watchman, residents of Lee’s hometown, Monroeville, Alabama, along with the general public, have questioned whether or not publishers are taking advantage of the eighty-eight year old author. Recently, however, Lee’s lawyer Tonja…
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Questioning Harper Lee’s Editor Answers
Here’s an author who has staunchly refused interviews and publicity since 1960, who hasn’t breathed a word about her interest in publishing another book to either family or friends, but who is suddenly fine with releasing her decades-old Mockingbird prequel,…
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Brown Bag Your American Literature, Quick
Michael Gove, Britain’s Education Secretary, is rewriting Britain’s public school curriculum to be more British. To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Crucible are among the titles being dropped from required reading lists. “I put this in…
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Boo Radley, Social Media Star
Last Monday, Harper Lee brought an end to what CNN has called “a glaring holdout in the digital library of literary masterpieces,” and the news has social media buzzing with fans chomping at the bit. Lee has finally agreed to…
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But Is It A Sin to Kill Her Agent?
In November, we posted a link to a story about To Kill a Mockingbird’s Harper Lee suing her hometown museum. But it turns out the aging author has an even bigger fish to fry in the courtroom: her literary agent who…