Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

by Mary McDonagh Murphy

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s beloved classic To Kill a Mockingbird , filmmaker Mary Murphy has interviewed prominent figures—including Oprah, Anna Quindlen, and Tom Brokaw—on how the book has impacted their lives. These interviews are compiled in Scout, Atticus, and Boo , the perfect companion to one of the most important American books of the 20th Century. Scout, Atticus, and Boo will also feature a foreword from acclaimed writer Wally Lamb.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Essays, Literary Criticism, Literature, Classics, History

217 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Mary McDonagh Murphy is an independent film and television writer/producer whose current projects include a documentary about the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Her most recent book is Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird. She has also recently produced Cry for Help, a PBS program."

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful book with interviews from various people, including Harper Lee's sister and people from her hometown. Also interviews with people from the movie.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my very favorite all time books. My copy is so tattered it’s almost unreadable (so I did buy the 50th anniversary edition for actual further readings.) My copy is a paperback copy that was originally my mother’s; its cover price was 60¢. It’s one of only 4 books I’ve read at least 100 times; I read it for the first time when I was 12. I don’t know the book verbatim, but I know many passages by heart. I feel as though I have much of the book memorized. (The movie came out when I was 9 and I did see it in the theater with my parents, so the movie came first for me; I like both movie and book. The movie is great. The book is a true masterpiece.) It’s one of those books I love so much, I haven’t yet been able to write a worthy review; I haven’t even tried.

I’m a huge fan of both Scout and Atticus, especially Scout. I would have had a lot to say for this book as, I’m sure, would most of its readers.

So, this book: It was a huge pleasure to immerse myself in all things Mockingbird, read others’ feelings and thoughts about the book. (I won’t list every contributor in my review. I added them all to the book’s description field.)

As I was reading I knew that I was going to see the movie again pronto (this weekend!) and I’m excited to have a plan to reread the book (first reads for a couple of people) with a small group of other Goodreads members in early August.

My biggest gripe about this book and the main reason I didn’t assign it 5 stars: As I read the essays it felt at times as though I’d already read them and it was because long passages from them were quoted in the introductory section of the book. I wish either the author had just written a book and used quotes from a bunch of people/the contributors or (my preference) that in her introductory portion she just gave the history of the book and times and her own impressions of the book, and not quoted at all from the essays by various people that are to follow.

It’s funny that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my all time favorite books but, even though I have some biographies on my shelf, I’ve never known much about Harper Lee. At times felt a little uncomfortable when certain interviewees talked about their personal knowledge of her, worried that she’d feel displeased because her privacy had been violated, but it was so exciting to get to know her via people who’ve known her, some who’ve known her very well. It was a great pleasure to get to know her. Now, I really do want to read as much as I can about her. I was a bit surprised and delighted to see how much of To Kill a Mockingbird ] is autobiographical re its author and the town too; the times I knew about already, even though it took place in a different part of the country and a couple decades before I was born.

It was a huge comfort to read others’ feelings and thoughts and see that so many people have a lot of the same feelings about the book and its characters that I do. It’s one of my new comfort read books, not in the same league with To Kill a Mockingbird, but only a handful of books are in that category.

A Warning: Open up some time for a reread of To Kill a Mockingbird and then perhaps some time to see the movie again too. This book will make you yearn to experience them again. I wanted more contributors in this book, I want to read more about Nelle Harper, I want to see the movie again, and most of all, I can’t wait to experience the book yet again. This book is a powerful book pusher.

[Lisa Berman · Rating 3 out of 5]

great companion as I missed our book club last spring when we read the book and watched the movie...My own personal book club.....

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read that consists of a series of interviews by famous authors and personalities about To Kill a Mockingbird. (Um, the authors and personalities aren't about to kill a mockingbird, they are merely going to discuss the book of that name. This is why I am not a great writer.) There were several points that different people brought up that I hadn't considered. I loved the book, that's why I have felt compelled to read everything about this book. And maybe I'm burning out. I also got the documentary to watch that goes with this book and maybe that's overkill. (Overkill of a mockingbird?)

At any rate, this book was good. No one was interviewed who DIDN'T like Harper Lee's book. Of course.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the 1.4 million GR ratings of To Kill a Mockingbird, one percent didn’t like the book, gave it one star! Unbelievable, right? Don’t look for interviews in this book from any of those people. Twenty-six people plus the author tell the stories of their connections to and recollections of the author, the book and the movie. Everybody has their story about To Kill a Mockingbird. Never was heard a discouraging word, and the skies were not cloudy all day.

Although I have never read a fan magazine, this book is just like I imagine a fan magazine. Half of what you read is probably not true and you have to decide which half. These are stories about TKMB that have become tales and lore over the years. As we all know, both the book and the movie have become legends of a sort. Whenever I compare books with someone on Goodreads, I most often find that we both gave TKMB five stars. Everybody has read TKMB and almost everybody has seen the movie at least once. Each person who has found a place in this book, has a tall tale to tell. It turns out that the tale is rarely that original and some could even be considered gossip, something they heard from Bill who heard it from Sally.

You can easily read this book in a couple of days. It is not taxing. It is not deep or intense. It is just a series of stories by people who have a personal connection with the book or the author. Some are well known, others not so much. Many tell about Nelle Harper Lee; you learn about her second (or third) hand since there is so little direct communication from her since the time the book was published in 1960. She has kept herself out of the spotlight in spite of the efforts of many to shine it on her. The fact that she has been somewhat invisible has, of course, made information about her in great demand.

Her connection with Truman Capote has intrigued people. The fact that she has not published another book since TKMB is a lightening rod. She does not defend or explain what she has or has not done in her writing career or personal life. Like J.D. Salinger, the mystery about her is now part of who she is. She has elected to stay out of the limelight without any evidence of wanting that to be different. Many interviewed for this book will tell you the real truth – or at least what they think! Many are writers who believe they have a special point of view as a result.

Scout, Atticus & Boo helps the reader understand and experience the fact that “famous” people are just people in the end. The twenty-six famous people who told their little stories about reading TKMB and what they got out of it represent a range of people. The approach to writing the book is to use the person’s own spoken words put into writing. I guess you would call most of it reminiscences in a colloquial monologue style. Like an interview with the interviewer edited out. Some of the entries are much more interesting to read than others. I did enjoy reading Mary Badham (Scout), Anna Quindlen, Scott Turow and Andrew Young. I mean, hardly any of them really knows Harper Lee but everyone has a viewpoint since that is what they are each asked to provide. I would think the sister, Alice Finch Lee, who gets quite a few pages, would be more interesting than she turns out to be. You hear several refer to Huck Finn and others to Truman Capote as if this was special information that only they could share. It may be harsh but I would apply the words drivel and insipid to some of the interviews. They were interesting for a while, but soon got repetitious. Only a few people who really know Nelle Harper Lee personally are in this book. Those people, when asked to participate, must have simply said “No, thank you.” The ones who said “Sure” are just using the dozen talking points about Harper Lee. Everyone knows her book, but very few know her.

If you have read TKMB one or several times, you may feel that you know the characters. After you have read this book you will know who in Lee’s very small hometown, Monroeville, Alabama, is believed to be the template for quite a few characters in the book. Depending on your source, Lee considers herself Boo or Scout or a bit of both.

Scout, Atticus & Boo starts out with forty-one pages of summary prose by author Mary Murphy that is a synopsis of the 168 pages of recollections that follow. Reading that first forty-one pages would be sufficient. The second part, The Interviews, is simply the source of the summary information. Not much new, significant information is added. We are just beaten over the head (softly maybe) with the same material repeated until we finally reach the end. Actually, I thought some of the most interesting interviews were at the end. But you had to get there.

This would be maybe a four star hundred page book. I thought it was a 2½ star 209 page book. After all, how do you tell a “famous” person that you are not going to use their material? The content of the book suggests that the author didn’t try to edit out the repetition. Everybody got their vote. The fact that Scout, Atticus & Boo is about a five star book doesn’t make it automatically good but it does make it OK, two stars. But it is hard to imagine Harper Lee authorizing this book considering her determination to maintain her privacy. Since that authorization is not divulged, it is fair to assume she did not. The extra ½ star is for the first 41 pages and a few interesting interviews. There is enough material here to make a very good long magazine or newspaper article. Or maybe blog. But not a rich book.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was growing up, we received a book every quarter from Reader's Digest Condensed Books. For those of you too young to remember these treasures, a Readers Digest Condensed Book contained abridged versions of 4-5 recent releases and bestsellers. When I was about 8 years old, in third grade, I picked up one of these volumes that contained To Kill a Mockingbird. That story grabbed me and taught me about race, justice, and acceptance. I saw the world completely through Scout's eyes. Being the same age as her, I could easily identify with her. When I grew up an re-read the book, I found that I had missed a lot of the little lessons in the story, but I did pick up on the big ones. When my daughter was old enough, I bought her a copy and she loved it just as much as I did.

I really wanted a copy of Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird when I first saw it in the bookstore a few months ago. Fortunately, I found a copy under my Christmas tree along with a 50th Anniversary hardcover edition of To Kill a Mockingbird in a slipcase. Scout, Atticus, and Boo turned out to be a treasure. I loved reading the interviews with people, famous and not, who had been touched by Harper Lee's classic. I was really surprised by the number of interviewees who had read it as early in their lives as I had. I also was surprised by how many people had used it in their classrooms and/or had been exposed to it first as a high school reading assignment. Unfortunately, neither I nor my children have been exposed to it in a classroom setting. It's a shame, because I think it's a book every American should read.

The wonderful thing about Scout, Atticus, and Boo was reading how To Kill a Mockingbird touched and inspired others just as much as it touched and inspired me. It was like sitting down with a group of friends and swapping stories about what may be the most beloved book in America.

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was mostly a "meh" book for me. I went in to this book thinking it was a series of essays about To Kill a Mockingbird and its effects on society. In reality the book is more like a series of love letters to To Kill a Mockingbird that all say more or less the same thing. "Harper Lee was brave;" "it's obvious Truman Capote had no part in writing it;" "I wish there were more books by Harper Lee" etc

I did think the author that suggested Harper Lee wasn't brave because white writers should have been writing books about racial intolerance in the early 60s and weren't (thus Lee wasn't brave because it was simply something everyone should do - even if they didn't) was kind of interesting. Actually, it kind of felt like that particular author didn't like To Kill a Mockingbird much at all, other than the fact that one is "supposed" to.

While I don't regret reading it - and it was fun to hear from some of the people that wrote in (the actress that played Scout, and Alice Lee in particular) I didn't love it and probably won't recommend it.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 1 out of 5]

Writing a negative review regarding a book about my favorite book seems blasphemous. Yet, here I go:

The author certainly has a host of credentials including the fact that she was a producer at CBS News, where she won six Emmy awards. Still, because of the poor writing and editing, while reading this book I was drawn away from the story. Just when I found an interesting tidbit, wham....I was frustrated by redundancy.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, the author interviewed many prominent people who were greatly impacted by the book. Tom Brokaw, Oprah Winfrey, Andrew Young and Rick Bragg were among some of those interviewed. The author quoted many of their comments in her forward, then proceeded to use the same material again and again.

On a positive note, I enjoyed many of the insights.

Harper Lee was surprised by the instant success of her book. She is quoted as saying "I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hand of the reviewers."

To Kill a Mockingbird remains my all-time favorite book. It continues to sell a million copies a year.

Shame on you Mary McDonagh Murphy. You could have done a better job. You had so darn much to work with!!

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sounds like a must for Mockingbird fans! Later... and it is!

I first read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in junior high and I still have the paperback copy I bought then which cost a whopping 95 cents! It's pages are very yellow so when I saw the 40th anniv. edition last year (in a beautiful hard-cover edition) I snapped it up.

Scout, Atticus & Boo made me want to read Mockingbird again. It's full of lovely essays from great writers and journalists including Wally Lamb, Scott Turow, James Patterson, Richard Russo and Anna Quindlen, as well as Harper Lee's sister and Mary Badham (who played Scout in the movie). It's wonderful to read how Mockingbird influenced some of my favorite authors. I also enjoyed Oprah's story of her meeting with Harper Lee and Gregory Peck. There is a lot of speculation as to why Harper never wrote another book. I'm wondering if she will read this one! I hope she does!

[Booksrock · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some interesting parts, however, overall it was a disappointment. Murphy give away everything that her "interviewies" say almost quote by quote before one gets to the interviews themselves. The first portion of the book mirrors the second almost verbatim. I also did not find the people that she interviewed overall very interesting. I loved the interview with Mary Badham, and Rick Bragg, but the rest were for the most part, with some exceptions, very predictable. There is nothing new in this book. Since she also did a documentary, I would like to see it and hope that there is more life there.

[Mauoijenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting stuff.
Good book to read after you read TKAM!

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 45 pages, about the writing of the book and the making of the movie, were the best. Very interesting to the reader who loves TKAM. The interviews were interesting. . .for awhile. There were simply too many of them, I guess. They got repetitive. The most readable were those from the people most closely connected to the project, like Mary Badham (who played Scout in the movie) and Harper Lee's sister, Alice. But I found it surprising that some of the essay writers who were authors themselves would submit such rambling, unfocused entries. Not all of them, but some.

I try not to read reviews on Goodreads before reading a specific book myself, because it's too easy to be colored by other people's comments. But then it's also interesting to see afterwards that many other people felt the same way. That was especially true with this book.

Also, this was published before the disastrous Go Set a Watchman (which I have serious doubts about being an authentic Lee work), so the reader should be aware that much of the book references TKAM as being a solo novel.

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

By coincidence in the same week of the release of "Go Set a Watchman" (and hysteria surrounding) I spotted this paperback on the upper shelf of a bookcase in an assisted living community outside of Eugene, Oregon while visiting my husband's father. I was conflicted about the publication of Harper Lee's earlier, apparently set-aside novel and had decided (not having ignored leaked information mind you) that I didn't want to spoil the work that was meant to be published by reading something she'd never seemed inclined to have published. I liberated this book from assisted living and started reading interviews with a variety of people, other Southern writers or people who associated with the film version, about how reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" affected them as writers, people, artists, etc. I caught on quickly that this was a written accompaniment to a documentary made by Mary McDonagh Murphy as I could tell that it was writers like Wally Lamb, Richard Russo, Anna Quindlen 'speaking' rather than writing. It had been published around the 50th anniversary to "Mockingbird's" publication in 1960 (birth year!). I felt like I had been giving clues to a riddle about the truth now in question about characters in the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, forget that the word fiction should be the answer.

Yet I feel satisfied with how the pieces add up for me, this seeming disconnect between beloved Atticus and the father in the newly published work, who is not perfect like Atticus, but a racist, and yet her father. Scott Turow, in his reflection, says of Atticus, "He is a paragon beyond paragons." Wally Lamb's chapter resonated, not only did he turn a teacher's eye on the sensory description of a small town Maycomb but he shares re: Harper Lee's writing, "You start with who and what you know. You take a survey of the lay of the land that formed and shaped you. And then you begin to lie about it. You tell one lie that turns into a different lie. And after awhile, those models sort of lift off and become their own people rather than the people you originally thought of." He concludes that in literary fiction "by telling lies you are trying to arrive at a deeper truth. Your work is no longer factual, but it's true."

In reading over all the essays I remembered all that I loved about the book, and appreciated being reminded of what was true for the townspeople of Nelle Harper Lee's actual hometown, which was very different depending on whether you were black or white.

As for the character of Atticus...as Wally Lamb says you start with you know. Harper Lee created the character who has come to represent an ideal. I think he was a creation that took her own father and her sister Alice Finch Lee as seeds. Alice was 15 years older and she was a lawyer who did represent blacks in Monroeville. After she passed the bar her father invited her to come home and join his practice. She recounted she was worried she'd be consider Mr. Lee's little girl and asked him, "How is a small town going to react to a woman in a law office?" She recalled that her father smiled and said, "You'll never know until you've tried it." And so for me Atticus the character came out of all that was finest in two small town lawyers, a daughter and a father, written by a daughter and sister who wove from their truth a character who raises us up.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first encountered this book when I was in Monroeville, Alabama, in July 2010 for the town's celebration of TKAM's 50th anniversary. I was attending a lecture at the local community college, and this book was at my table. I flipped through it and immediately read the interviews by Anna Quindlen and Oprah Winfrey. The idea seemed interesting--lots of interesting people's responses to TKAM--plus a little history on the novel as well.

For my birthday in September 2010, I received this book. I didn't read it at first, and then I turned it into a bedtime read. A few pages each night before sleep. But it wasn't all that riveting, and I don't think that was the author's intention. I like the history section a lot more than all the interviews. After a while, a lot of them start to sound the same. "She only wrote one book" opinions are divided into two camps: those who are glad Harper Lee said everything she needed to say in one book and those who wish she had written more. But I didn't need to hear that in every interview.

Plus, McDonagh Murphy weaves some of the best quotes from the interviews into her history at the start of the book. It gets even more repetitive that way.

If you want insight into Harper Lee, read her sister Alice's interview. If you want the inside scoop on the movie, read the first two interviews by Mary Badham and Boaty Boatwright. As for the rest of the 23 interviews, just read three or four. That will more than cover the range of responses and opinions.

Finally, I realize this is a "celebration" of TKAM, but it would have been interesting to have had at least one person interviewed who did not really care for the book.

[Gary Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't already love To Kill a Mockingbird, you probably wouldn't pick up this book anyway. But if To Kill a Mockingbird is your book, and it is mine, then this tribute is a great read.

The contributors include a mix of authors, artists, thinkers, celebrities, and residents of Monroeville, Alabama. The book is nicely edited in that it shuffles these various perspectives so that if we read it in order, we move easily among these insights and emerge with a satisfying blend of ways to consider To Kill a Mockingbird.

My favorite sections were those from Wally Lamb, Richard Russo, and Roseanne Cash, but I'm big fans of their work and lives anyway. On the other hand, anything involving Oprah Winfrey pretty much gags me as she tries to either take credit for most of the world's goodness or juxtapose herself with it so that it cannot be considered without her. The words of Alice Finch Lee and Mary Tucker provide glimpses into the world of To Kill a Mockingbird that few could supply, and I'm glad Mary McDonagh Murphy brought those contributions into public view.

I met Mary McDonagh Murphy last weekend at the National Council of Teachers of English convention, and she was charming, generous, and warm. Those qualities apply to her book as well.

[Leslie Reinhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I absoloutely loved this book. When presented with the question in a class a few years ago asking, "If the world today were like Farenheit 41 and you could opt to rebel and memorize one book to save for future societies, what would it be?" Without hesitation, or delay, my answer was obvious, To Kill a Mockingbird. Each year I read this book at least four times as I teach it to three classes and every year I love it more. In honor of the 50th anniversary this book was published this year. It was awesome to read through the pages and see how other specific parts of the book touched people in different ways, from Oprah, to Truman Capote, to Harper Lee's neigbors back in Monroeville, AL. I found myself nodding my head in agreement or truly being angry if someone did not think a section of the book was as brilliant as I thought. If you love Mockingbird and haven't read it in a while (like since you were in high school) you should reread it then read this companion book. It reminds you that good literature really is out there.

[Siobhan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess it’s not surprising that I was disappointed in this book. Mary McDonagh Murphy collected reflections by numerous people on what they thought of To Kill a Mockingbird to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication. She talked about show much she liked the book; she’s read it three times.

Three times!!!! I had read it that often by the time I was 12. I’ve read it hundreds of times by this point. It’s one of the two books with which I have a relationship (the other is The Chosen by Chaim Potok).

Some of the comments are interesting, and clearly this book touches millions of people in extraordinary ways.

My best friend once said that whenever she gets the urge to read a new novel, she just rereads To Kill a Mockingbird instead. That pretty much sums up my reaction to this book. Why read about To Kill a Mockingbird when I could just visit Maycomb County again myself?

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first third of the book is an interesting historical essay about the writing & publishing of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (which is 50 years old this year) and the filming of the movie. It quotes liberally from the rest of the book, a series of interview transcripts done for a documentary film with a wide variety of people connected to Harper Lee.

The essay is very interesting - but it harvests the best bits (for the most part) from the remaining interviews, which makes them less appealing. The most interesting of those interviews are with people who were closely connected with Harper Lee or the film... but there are some interviews (Tom Brokaw?!) which are really about padding the length and/or name recognition.

I'd recommend this to fans of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD who want to know more about the author.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

This books is pointless. I mean, who doesn't love To Kill a Mockingbird, but I really don't think this book had much of anything to say at all. The first section is just the author/editor pulling quotes from the interviews you're going to read in the second half. And the interviews are, I think, just transcripts, which means they're written like people speak - kind of disorganized, and not very eloquent. And mostly they're just like, "Oh, boy, I loved this book/movie. Scout was fun. It made me think about race relations." Well, duh.

Now I feel cruel for bagging on what's obviously just a big ol' love letter to a very good book and movie. But I just feel like it was a waste of my time. Sad. :(

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fine; I came to it hoping for excerpts to share with my students while they read TKaM as freshmen, and while I enjoyed the first 40 or so pages (which I expect is a rough transcript of the documentary), the in full interviews I don't think added much beyond what was already covered in the first section. I found some moments useful for my students (particularly when one interviewee stated that TKaM is a book that showed white people a different way to be), but I don't think it's a must-read book, or if you do pick it up, reading the first section would be sufficient unless you particularly love one of the interviewees.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, lovely book. The author made a documentary about Harper Lee and this is inspired by the documentary. Except for a sizable introduction, the book consists of reflections by a number of people, famous and not, about the impact of To Kill a Mockingbird on their lives. Some are writers who talk about how the book informed their writing. Many talk about how it helped them to feel the impact of racism in the South, some talked about how they related to the idea of living in a small town. I haven't read TKAM since I last taught it to 9th graders. I think it is time to read it again.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

so this book wasn't really all that great. i didn't even finish it because it was due back at the library and i didn't think it was worth renewing. basically what it made me realize is that i don't really care why other people love "to kill mockingbird." all i really care about is why i love it . and while it was kind of interesting to hear from the people who actually knew harper lee, in the end i found the book a bit repetitive and (dare i say) slightly boring.

[Lorraine Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of interviews conducted across the spectrum of race, gender, geographical location, occupation, and age, with people who have one thing in common — To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee meant something profound to them personally, as well as on a social and literary level.

Mary McDonagh Murphy tells us that the germ of this project came one day while sitting on her back porch rereading Mockingbird for the third time. It is a book to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Mockingbird  and each interview is unique.  Oh, sure, there is more than one who loved Scout and wanted to be Scout; more than one wanted a dad like Atticus with that amazing sense of intuitive parenting, and belief in justice that he would take on an unpopular case knowing he would lose no matter how positively he proved his client innocent; more than one who, when reading as a 10-, 11-, 12-year-old boy, identified with Jem but was impacted by the beauty and grace of the writing.  But each one had a personal experience with the book that influenced their beliefs, attitudes, relationships, and a life-long love of reading.  Many of them were inspired to become authors, many of them from the South.

There is a wonderful forward by Wally Lamb who taught for many years and began publishing his own novels in 1992, and has conducted writing workshops in maximum-security prisons.  He is one of the interviewed Southern authors.  Then, Part I is where Mary Murphy talks about Mockingbird , the reading of it, the writing in it and people who criticize the writing in it, the characters, the relevance of the book today, Harper Lee, and some gems from various interviews published herein.

Part II is the interviews.  Wally Lamb wasn't a reader in his teens.  He had a school book report coming up and "had already read the shortest books [he knew]".  His sister'd "been yapping about this novel that she had just read that she'd liked", so he picked it up and, for the first time, realized that literature could "kidnap" you.  When he became a high school teacher, he decided to try it with his kids and "it cast the same spell for [his] students as it had for [him].  Later on, when he began writing "to explore what you need to explore", he came to the conclusion that that was what Harper Lee had been doing.

You start with who and what you know. You take a survey of the lay of the land that formed you and shaped you. And then you begin to lie about it. You tell one lie that turns into a different lie. And after awhile, those models sort of lift off and become their own people. . .
And when you weave an entire network of lies, what you're really doing. . . is, by telling lies you are trying to arrive at a deeper truth.  Your work is no longer factual, but it's true.  It's true not only for you and your own experience, your singular experience, but it also hopefully becomes true for other people.

There's Oprah's wonderful retelling of her own experience of how Mockingbird  was the first book she started pushing on everyone she met.  She had borrowed it from the library on the librarian's recommendation; she was too poor to be able to purchase books.  Although she left the South when she was 6 and never personally experienced segregation, she "always recognized that life would have been so different for [her] had [she] been raised in a segregated environment".  She liked the movie (not everyone interviewed did), and when she found herself seated to next Gregory Peck at a Hollywood luncheon for Quincy Jones, she could only think of him as Atticus and kept asking him about Scout.

You just liked Scout.  You connected with her. I liked her energy. I liked the spirit of her. I liked the freshness of her. I liked the fact that she was so curious. I loved this character so much. . . she knew who she was and was very assertive and had a lot of confidence and believed in herself and was learning about this whole world of racism in such a way that I could feel myself also experiencing or learning about it — my eyes opening as her eyes were opening to it.

Of course, later in life, she wanted the book for her wildly popular Book Club, and although she wasn't able to get Harper Lee to come on her show, she did enjoy the privilege of having lunch with her in NYC, and talks about what a special time she enjoyed with her.  When Oprah opened her school in South Africa, people wanted to contribute and asked what they could bring.  Her response?  "Bring [your] favourite book"; and now, they "probably have a hundred copies of this book".  Each person who brought it wrote inside the cover about why it was an important book to them.  Each one says something totally different.

Once again, I've been introduced to authors I've not heard of before and am impressed enough to want to purchase books written by them.  Lee Smith ( The Last Girls (2002) and On Agate Hill (2008) and 10 others when she was interviewed) caught me by surprise.  Born in Grundy, Virginia, what she calls "the mountain South", she has a totally different experience: there were no blacks where she lived.  Their class system was based on who lived "in the town and who lived in the hollers", but the South described in Mockingbird fascinated her.  For her, it brought a "whole new awareness of people who were other, and what they suffered because of it. . . [it] changed the way [she] thought about race, class, and discrimination".  She also talked about the novel being banned by the Hanover County school board because a prominent physician had said it was inappropriate for children to read because of the rape issue.  She was working for a Richmond, Va, newspaper at the time which had said,

any child who wanted a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird should write him a personal letter and tell him why, and we would send them one.  Well, I was the one who sent 'em. . . and basically all I did was address copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and send them out to every child in Hanover County.  I thought it was fabulous . . . I was proud to be doing this.

Just about in the middle of this book is an interview granted by Alice Finch Lee, Nelle's older sister.  She tells quite a bit of family history and how she didn't really relate to her sister until they were both adults.  She always refers to her sister as Nelle Harper.  She tells her impressions of Truman Capote and how everyone in Monroeville thought they were in the book and that people from other small towns thought that Maycomb was based on their town.

There were many other interviews with people who impressed me with their experiences of reading   Mockingbird and gave profound insights into the novel, but the final one in the book, I thought, was the most enlightening. Andrew Young, former US ambassador to the UN, former congressman from Georgia, and former mayor of Atlanta, never read the book.  Just as he couldn't read Richard Wright, had a hard time with Roots and The Diary of Anne Frank , couldn't read big books on the Holocaust.  He couldn't deal with them emotionally. "They made [him] too bitter".  He had "no intellectual curiosity" about Mockingbird — he'd "been through it with [his] life".  He talks about his experiences with the civil rights movement, and before that, as a minister in Thomasville, Georgia, where he was asked to run "a voter registration drive to encourage people to vote for Eisenhower".  When he asked why, he was told that Eisenhower would "appoint judges . . . of integrity and the most intelligent people in the South.  And he will listen to us".  He cites instances where Eisenhower appointees supported the civil rights movement, upheld the Constitution, supported desegregation, and protected the right of blacks to march.  He called these judges Atticus Finches.  He says that  To Kill a Mockingbird

gave us hope that justice could prevail. . . that's one of the things that makes it a great story — [it] was an act of protest, but it was [also] an act of humanity.  It was saying that we're not all like this.  There are people who rise above their prejudices and even above the law.

I learned a lot of things I didn't know before about history and people, and about the different reasons people read this book many times and always take away something new that is uniquely theirs.  It's not about searching for Harper Lee, or controversy about Go Set A Watchman ; it's about real people sharing their personal deep feelings about an amazing book and how it impacted a country at exactly the right time in history.

[Bill Ibelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have any passion for To Kill a Mockingbird, this is a terrific read. Harper Lee has refused all interviews since the 1960s, so the author took another approach, which is quite interesting. After 50 pages of her own analysis, she devotes the rest of the book to short interviews with others about the impact the book had on them. Some are well known writers such as Richard Russo, James McBride, Wally Lamb and Rick Bragg. Others are celebrities such as Tom Brockaw and Oprah. Still others are townspeople and relatives. The first interview is with Mary Badham, who played Scout in the movie version. The interviews can get a bit repetitive at times, since the book had a similar impact on several of these people, but this is definitely a recommended read.

[meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok so first off I only read this bc my mother gave me a copy as a gift and therefore I basically have to

Secondly, this is such a strange book bc it feels like it's almost not meant to be read. It's a companion to a documentary and the first 40 pages effectively synthesizes the thesis of the film (which is: book good) while extensively quoting the people who were intervewed. And then the next section is the text of all the interviews conducted in full, so it's VERY repetitive, and probably was not intended to be read in one sitting (or, being more cynical, read at all). Still, I did read it, and I did find a lot of the commentary from various authors and contemporaries of Lee quite interesting, so. 3 stars

[Abbey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting companion for fans of To Kill a Mockingbird - though most of the interviewees are white, it is interesting to hear about the book’s influence in some circles, particularly at the time it was published.

One person commented that it is a book that condemns racism but not the racist, and I think that’s important to keep in mind when we praise the impact of this book.

It is a classic for good reason, however, and I am looking forward to rereading it soon!

This is my first completed book for Tistheseasonathon!

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accidental find, this was published in 2010 in honor of the 50th Anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird. Interviews and essays with people of all sorts- connections vary wildly from child actors in the movie, schoolmates of author Harper Lee and other authors and personalities who reflect on their first reading, usually as an adolescent and the impact it had on them and their lives. The book is equally about the times, the 60's Civil Rights Movement and the way it was in Monroeville, the real town. Definitely a good read.

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read and studied to kill a mockingbird, I loved reading about how this book touched so many people and the overwhelming impact on their lives whether it be the first time they read about racism or learned to think about things in someone else's perspective or they just fell in love with the characters. Anyone who loves to kill a mockingbird should read this book and again, see things from another person's perspective

[Christine Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for all the lovers of the book and/or the movie. The essays reveal the impact the novel had on Tom Brokaw, Oprah Winfrey, Anna Quindlen, Wally Lamb and many others. The author also gives us a closer look into the life of Harper Lee and her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Although her lengthy introduction in Part I does repeat many of the highlights of the interviews in Part II, it also includes photos of Harper Lee, her parents, Scout and that famous courthouse. A lovely book.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is for sure the only time I have ever opted for a 3 star "liked it", while admittedly I cried nearly 1 time every chapter. However, that's a testament to TKAM, not necessarily to this book. Experience TKAM for the first time again will never happen but this book was a fun vicarious approximation. Hats off, Murphy.