Author: Harper Lee
Publisher: Audio Partners (website not found)
Rating: WORTHY!
Ably read by Roses Pritchard.
I picked up this book because I finally couldn't stand not knowing what the big deal was about a two-kilo mockingbird. I guess I misheard the title...just kidding!
Set in the mid 1930's during the "Great Depression" (but written in the late fifties and published in 1960), this story is told from the PoV of Jean Louise Finch, who was known as "Scout", but it's told in retrospect, by an adult Jean, remembering events years ago. Jean's mother was dead, even back then, and she lived with her father, Atticus, a lawyer, and her older brother, Jeremy, who was known as "Jem".
Harper Lee denied that the novel was autobiographical, but her own father was a lawyer, she had an older bother, she hung out with a new guy in town who lived next door, and there was a boarded-up house nearby about which they made up stories. Many events in this story actually occurred in one way or another, although they were modified for this story.
The Finch family lives next door to the reclusive Radley family, and because of this, they make up stories about the Radley's - a family which both scares and intrigues them. During this time, a local black guy, Tom Robinson, is accused of assaulting a white girl - which back then, and especially in the south, was a pretty much an automatic death sentence whether the accused did it or not.
Atticus forbids his kids from watching the trial, but they sneak into the 'colored seats' up on the balcony. By some careful legal footwork, Atticus eventually shows the court that Mayella Violet Ewell, the girl accusing Tom, and her father, Robert E Lee Ewall, are lying. It was Bob who beat Mayella, not Tom. Despite this, Tom is found guilty, and is later shot 17 times when he supposedly tries to escape from prison.
This story borrows a lot from the real-life Emmett Till case, which was equally messed up, with exaggeration and dissemination on both sides. The sad thing there is that while nothing happened (at least not through the courts) to the accusers in that case, the accused paid heavily for this event - which constituted rudeness at worst and a misunderstanding at best - with his life, in an horrific torture and murder episode in the early hours of one morning - and the accused was only fourteen years old.
This story ends in Bob Ewell's death after he launches a cowardly attack upon Jean and Jeremy as they walk home late one night from a school Halloween pageant. Why Atticus even countenanced their being unescorted given the preceding campaign of threats and intimidation which Ewell had launched against Atticus and his home is a mystery and an appalling example of irresponsible parenting.
I don't know if I would have enjoyed this had I read it rather than listened to it. It was entertaining to begin with, then got boring, then became entertaining again. Roses Pritchard did a good job or representing the older Scout reminiscing.
The story isn't a really great story, and some negative reviews I've read call it out correctly in some regards, but to me a story is either worth reading (a five-star) or it isn't (a zero-star represented by a one-star since zero isn't an option). Yes the characters were a bit flat, and yes it was a very black and white story in more than one way, but did it entertain me? Yes!
Another complaint I read was that there was no character growth, but to me, character growth is over-rated! I don't need a character to grow in a story (unless they're really awful to begin with in which case growth is a requirement!). All I need is for the characters to be entertaining. Indeed, some stories which have entertained me well are enjoyable in part because the character doesn't change. In this case I neither expected it nor needed it, and I considered this one a worthy read - or more accurately, a worthy listen.
