Finished the book yesterday. Jean Louise (Scout) at 26, a firey liberal on civil rights matters, and working in NYC, comes home for month vacation and discovers that her dad, Atticus, is a man of his time and place, which she somehow missed growing up especially in her circumstances of growing up without a mom and tended by a black woman beloved by she and her brother Jem.
She goes bonkers at this discovery and a lot of the book is about the efforts of others in her family, etc. to try to explain things to her (in rather abstract terms I thought).
Jem is absent having died of a heart attack in his mid 20's. Some interesting new characters including Atticus's sis who is taking care of him now domestically - he is 72, with arthridas (sic), and his brother who is a wise and uninhibited childless doctor who loves Scout like his own.
Some bits of humor. Scout and a boyfriend take a swim in the river at night and are seen. The false rumor gets around the small town that they were swimming naked. When Atticus hears this from his sis who considers it a scandal, he responds: " Scout I hope you weren't swimming the backstroke."
Must be kept in mind troughout that the story was written in, and the events therein take place in, the mid-fifties. Remarkedly, with the more recent racial stuff in the news (Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston, etc.) the book almost seems to have been written attuned to the modern day in many respects.
My advice, don't go spending $30.00 like I did for the book. Wait for it to get to the used books stores.
It 's worth reading, but by no means another "Mockingbird".
She goes bonkers at this discovery and a lot of the book is about the efforts of others in her family, etc. to try to explain things to her (in rather abstract terms I thought).
Jem is absent having died of a heart attack in his mid 20's. Some interesting new characters including Atticus's sis who is taking care of him now domestically - he is 72, with arthridas (sic), and his brother who is a wise and uninhibited childless doctor who loves Scout like his own.
Some bits of humor. Scout and a boyfriend take a swim in the river at night and are seen. The false rumor gets around the small town that they were swimming naked. When Atticus hears this from his sis who considers it a scandal, he responds: " Scout I hope you weren't swimming the backstroke."
Must be kept in mind troughout that the story was written in, and the events therein take place in, the mid-fifties. Remarkedly, with the more recent racial stuff in the news (Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston, etc.) the book almost seems to have been written attuned to the modern day in many respects.
My advice, don't go spending $30.00 like I did for the book. Wait for it to get to the used books stores.
It 's worth reading, but by no means another "Mockingbird".
Last edited:
