When I hear the phrase "great American novel," I think of "To Kill A Mockingbird."
Sorry, Mark Twain! Sorry, Edgar Allan Poe! Sorry, Herman Melville! Sorry, William Faulkner! Sorry F. Scott Fitzgerald!
To me, no work of fiction describes the highs and low of the American experience than the story of Scout, her brother Tom, her friend Dill (Truman Capote in real life), and her heroic father, Atticus Finch, Attorney at Law.
The movie was great. It won three Academy Awards. The book was even better.
Harper Lee was the ultimate one-hit wonder of literature. (Melville is a close second.) She was a private person who shunned the spotlight. She refused to give interviews - who wouldn't have wanted to land THAT scoop?
Today, we mourn the passing of the lady who bewtowed upon us the quintessential American novel, a story of childhood innocence in the Deep South, an innocence that was shaken and nearly shattered by a confrontation with unspeakable evil. In the story, the villain is more than a human being. The real villain is a stubborn and widespread system of institutional racism, and the communities of "nice" people for whom it had become acceptable.
It is indeed a sin to kill a mockingbird. We lost one today.
Copyright © 2016 Daniel R. South
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