On Harper Lee's Mockingbird

I was not a big fan of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I never got the title. I grew up in the country and the darn birds were a loud nuisance.
  

 I live in the city now, and they're still a loud nuisance that steals the voices of insects, animals and other birds. At night, my word, they'll keep you awake mimicking crickets or bob whites (quail). Baaaa -- (upnote) -- White! Said over and over, it gets on one's last nerve, as we say in the South.

About the title, Sparknotes writes:

1. "Thus, to kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Throughout the book, a number of characters (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley, Mr. Raymond) can be identified as mockingbirds—innocents who have been injured or destroyed through contact
   with evil."

US Fish and Wildlife Photo

Okay. I never thought of mockingbirds as innocents, in fact they are rather crafty. Why not To Kill a Bluebird? Now that songbird, with its distinctive beloved voice, is welcome in every garden as a voracious feeder of pesky insects and are a  joy to see and listen to on a lovely summer morning.

US Fish and Wildlife Photo

I realize I'm picking on an icon, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a sensitive author. I read the book when I was a teenager -- in school, of course -- and again about ten years ago to see if my first twinges of boredom reoccurred. It's still slow-moving like the South of the period in which it was set. (Though, by today's literary fiction standards, and length, it moves along.) And, having experienced the attitudes in the book, I appreciate the value of it in today's society. For me, the shrill of the mockingbird's voices resonates with that which is stolen rather than that which is innocent.

Told from a child's point of view, we meet the Finches (bird irony here?) one summer. Scout, her brother, Jem, and their friend, Dill, plot a way to aggravate the town weirdo, Boo Radley. Into this "innocence" the alledged rape of Mayella Ewell, the white daughter of the town drunk, occurs. That crime hardly phases the kids. But then Scout's father, Atticus Finch, is hired to defend the alleged rapist, Tom Robinson, a black man; and soon the children are witness to the town's deplorable attitudes -- racism, classism and the valiant struggle for justice against ignorance.
  
Harper Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926, Lee wrote one novel and vowed to never write another. She helped research a book by her life-long friend, Truman Capote: In Cold Blood. However, she will publish a book that she wrote before her famous Mockingbird, titled, Go Set a Watchman, to be released in July, 2015.

 As quoted in To Kill a Mockingbird, "People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for."

So true.

Happy Reading (whatever your preferences)

Gerrie Ferris Finger
Running with Wild Blood - 2015
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

DO YOU TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHODUNNIT?

In most reviews of my books, one of the important aspects is figuring  out whodunnit as the reviewer reads the book.

"I figured out who did it early in the beginning," seems to rate a negative point. 

"I didn't figure it out until the middle when such and such clue was revealed." That's gets an okay, but means I need to be more obscure with clues next time.

"I was totally surprised at who did it. Never would have guessed." This is a definite thumbs up.

And that is my goal. It's a mystery, after all. It should stay mysterious until the end.


But I understand the need to know. I was a journalist before I became a novelist. As a reader, I cast about for the villain even though I don't want to know.  (I think it's my earliest mystery reading. Agatha Christie, of course. How she could lead me away from the true killer is still a mystery.)

Does it spoil the ending when I guess right? Sometimes it does, but then, like all readers I hope for a surprise. That begs a question: do I really want to be wrong?

I've been hosted by many book clubs and the members vary in their desire to unmask the bad guys, or girls. Some just enjoy the read. One woman said, "I don't want to know." Another woman said, "I almost always figure out whodunit in the first pages." She says it's because the villain has to appear in the first pages and so it becomes a process of elimination. Well, that's her way, but in today's mysteries the villain often does not come into the story in the first pages. In some not until the last half.

Today it's all about character and character-building. If I can spot a cardboard villain in the first part of the book, I'm likely going to lose interest. Most mysteries are set in the here and now, and so to unmask a villain early is poor writing, or an overlooked clue by the author. 

For my reading pleasure, the bad guy needs to keep his killer self under wraps until he no longer can - and that's at the end.

Go enjoy a book today. It's always World Book Day.

Best to all, 

Gerrie Ferris Finger

ABOUT ME

In 2009, I won The Malice Domestic/St. Martin's Minotaur Best First Traditional Novel Competition for THE END GAME, to be released by St. Martin's Minotaur on April 27, 2010.

I grew up in Missouri, then came South to join the staff of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I researched and edited the columns of humorist Lewis Grizzard and co-wrote a news column with another reporter for three years.

Lewis became my mentor, and when he passed away, I joined the newspapers' Southern Task Force. As a reporter, I traveled the Tobacco Roads of Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, and the narrow, historic streets of New Orleans. I wrote about Natchez, Mississippi's unique history, Florida's diverse population, and the Outer Banks struggle to keep the Cape Hatteras light house from toppling into the sea. Also, I served on the National News Desk and on the City Desk's City Life section.

When I retired, I knew I would write crime fiction. I covered crime for the newspaper. Real crime is sordid, with no romance or redeeming features. Justice often doesn't prevail. Real people go back to miserable lives. In writing fictional crime, I can make the good guys winners and give the bad guys what they deserve.

In 2009 I signed a contract with Desert Breeze Publishing for two romance e-books: The Laura Kate Plantation Series, Book I, WHEN SERPENTS DIE (04/01) and Book II, HONORED DAUGHTERS (10/01). WAGON DOGS, Book III, will be released in October, 2010

www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

Gerrie