Atticus Finch by Joseph Crespino

 

Atticus Finch by Joseph Crespino is the “biography” of the father character in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Crespino explains how Atticus came to be modeled after A.C. Lee, Harper Lee’s lawyer-turned-newspaperman father.  Crespino gives many behind the scene details regarding the making of the film in Hollywood as well.

He also discusses the later-found work, Go Set a Watchman, in which a totally different persona was developed for Atticus. Rather than scorn it, he says the book shows how Lee was conflicted about how she wanted to portray her father in literature. Lee was crafting her work in a historical period of militant segregation politics at that time in the South, and she was trying to make sense of how her father fit into the scheme of things.

In this scholarly work, Crespino shares his insider’s look at letters and documents that were made available to him, some from private collections, as well as his conversations with three grandchildren of Lee’s father, her own nieces and a nephew. With his background in history, Crespino is able to put Lee’s work into a social and political history context. Several photographs in the book show a more flattering Harper Lee than the author shots that are usually used.

Fans of Lee and her work will learn much about her life and how it found its way into her writing.

Joseph Crespino, the Jimmy Carter Professor of History at Emory University, is an expert in the political and cultural history of the twentieth century United States, and of the history of the American South since Reconstruction. 

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting October 30, 2020.

I would like to thank Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, a subsidiary of Hatchette Book Group, Inc., and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.