The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Why the values of ‘Mockingbird’ and Finch still matter
Fifty-eight years after the book was published and 56 years after the movie was released, “To Kill A Mockingbird” still exerts a profound hold on Americans yearning for a simpler time and heroes such as that small town lawyer, Atticus Finch.
Tom Santopietro, who freely admits to loving Harper Lee’s book and Robert Mulligan’s movie so much that he is “obsessed” with them, came to R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison last Thursday night to talk about their ongoing appeal, addressed in his new book “Why To Kill A Mockingbird Matters” (St. Martin’s Press).
Although Santopietro, a New Yorker, is not widely known in Connecticut, the topic attracted more than 60 people to the bookstore on a summer night.
This reminded me of the day three years ago when a morning showing of the movie drew a sellout audience to the Madison Arts Cinemas across the street from the bookstore. I was fortunate to be there with my wife and our two daughters. I had seen the movie three or four times before, but this was one of the most meaningful movie-going experiences of my life. The crowd erupted in applause as the final credits began to roll; I know not all eyes were dry.
Santopietro supplied us with these statistics illustrating the appeal of the book: 50 million copies have been sold. Every year, 750,000 more are bought. (Lee had hoped it might sell about 5,000 copies, enough to let her write a second book.)
What is it about this story, set in Alabama in 1932, that gets to us?
Santopietro noted in his talk and in his book that “Mockingbird” deals with timeless themes of race relations, childhood innocence and its loss, tolerance and justice. He reminded us in the bookstore that when the book came out, “the civil rights movement was gathering steam. It struck this chord because it was dealing with race. But it was also about economic equality.”
Santopietro cited some of the things happening in July 1960 as the book hit the stores: “JFK was running for president; the civil rights movement was happening; Elvis Presley was the most popular singer. Change was in the air.”
Santopietro said Lee wrote a semi-autobiography based on her childhood in Monroeville, Ala. (She changed the name to Maycomb in the novel.) The central child character, Scout, closely resembled Lee: a tomboy resisting the culture and customs of that town, where blacks could still be lynched.
Finch, the lawyer who agreed to represent Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, was based on Lee’s father: Amasa Coleman Lee, also a lawyer.
“Another reason why the book strikes a chord is Atticus Finch,” Santopietro told us. “This is the man we think we are or can be. It’s who we want to believe we are as Americans. He’s the best of us.”
Santopietro said we can also relate to a central theme of the book: “The concept of ‘the other,’ anybody who is different, who doesn’t look the same. There’s not one of us in this room who has not at some point felt like ‘the other.’”
He said two characters in “Mockingbird” are “the other” — Robinson, because he is black, and Boo Radley, the reclusive, unknown man who rarely comes out of his family’s “haunted” home. Scout, her brother Jem and their friend Dill delight in daring one another to run up to the Radley front door and touch it.
“In the kids’ imagination Boo Radley is a monster,” Santopietro noted. “But he ultimately saves their lives.”
Santopietro said the book’s setting is also a key part of its enduring popularity. He read aloud to us just one passage, describing how the ladies of the town bathed