If you’re going to write just one book, it’s a pret­ty good out­come if that nov­el — To Kill A Mock­ing­bird — goes on to win the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, become the twen­ti­eth century’s most wide­ly read Amer­i­can nov­el, and which still sells about a mil­lion copies annu­al­ly today. Harp­er Lee (1926–2016) did just that (OK quib­blers, she did pub­lish a sec­ond nov­el in 2015, Go Set A Watch­man, which was writ­ten before Mock­ing­bird and tout­ed as a pre­quel but this was essen­tial­ly a first draft of To Kill A Mock­ing­bird).

Harp­er Lee (1926–2016) grew up in Mon­roeville, Alaba­ma, and had a lawyer father who once defend­ed two black men, a father and son, who had been accused of mur­der­ing a white store­keep­er. Both men were hanged. So you see, the young Nelle (Harp­er was her mid­dle name and was only used as her pen name) had ample mate­r­i­al with which to work in her nov­el about the irra­tional­i­ty of atti­tudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as seen through chil­dren’s eyes.

To Kill a Mock­ing­bird takes place in the fic­tion­al town of May­comb, Alaba­ma, dur­ing the Great Depres­sion. The pro­tag­o­nist is Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch, an intel­li­gent and coura­geous young girl who ages from six to nine years old dur­ing the course of the nov­el. She is raised with her broth­er, Jere­my (“Jem”), by their wid­owed father, Atti­cus Finch, who is a promi­nent lawyer. Atti­cus encour­ages his chil­dren to be empa­thet­ic and just, notably telling them that it is “a sin to kill a mock­ing­bird,” allud­ing to the fact that the birds are inno­cent and harm­less.

When Tom Robin­son, one of the town’s black res­i­dents, is false­ly accused of rap­ing Mayel­la Ewell, a white woman, Atti­cus agrees to defend him despite threats from the com­mu­ni­ty. At one point he faces a mob intent on lynch­ing his client but refus­es to aban­don him. Scout unwit­ting­ly dif­fus­es the sit­u­a­tion. Although Atti­cus presents a defence that gives a more plau­si­ble inter­pre­ta­tion of the evidence—that Mayel­la was attacked by her father, Bob Ewell—Tom is con­vict­ed, and he is lat­er killed while try­ing to escape cus­tody.

Here’s an extract from the scene just men­tioned, in which Scout dif­fus­es the sit­u­a­tion with the mob (led by Wal­ter Cun­ning­ham).

“Hey, Mr. Cun­ning­ham.”

The man did not hear me, it seemed.

“Hey, Mr. Cun­ning­ham. How’s your entail­ment get­tin‘ along?”

Mr. Wal­ter Cunningham’s legal affairs were well known to me; Atti­cus had once described them at length. The big man blinked and hooked his thumbs in his over­all straps. He seemed uncom­fort­able; he cleared his throat and looked away. My friend­ly over­ture had fall­en flat.

Mr. Cun­ning­ham wore no hat, and the top half of his fore­head was white in con­trast to his sun-scorched face, which led me to believe that he wore one most days. He shift­ed his feet, clad in heavy work shoes.

“Don’t you remem­ber me, Mr. Cun­ning­ham? I’m Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hick­o­ry nuts one time, remem­ber?” I began to sense the futil­i­ty one feels when unac­knowl­edged by a chance acquain­tance.

“I go to school with Wal­ter,” I began again. “He’s your boy, ain’t he? Ain’t he, sir?”

Mr. Cun­ning­ham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.

“He’s in my grade,” I said, “and he does right well. He’s a good boy,” I added, “a real nice boy. We brought him home for din­ner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won’t you?”

Atti­cus had said it was the polite thing to talk to peo­ple about what they were inter­est­ed in, not about what you were inter­est­ed in. Mr. Cun­ning­ham dis­played no inter­est in his son, so I tack­led his entail­ment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.

“Entail­ments are bad,” I was advis­ing him, when I slow­ly awoke to the fact that I was address­ing the entire aggre­ga­tion. The men were all look­ing at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atti­cus had stopped pok­ing at Jem: they were stand­ing togeth­er beside Dill. Their atten­tion amount­ed to fas­ci­na­tion. Atticus’s mouth, even, was half-open, an atti­tude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it.

“Well, Atti­cus, I was just sayin‘ to Mr. Cun­ning­ham that entail­ments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to wor­ry, it takes a long time some­times… that you all’d ride it out togeth­er…” I was slow­ly dry­ing up, won­der­ing what idio­cy I had com­mit­ted. Entail­ments seemed all right enough for liv­ing-room talk.

I began to feel sweat gath­er­ing at the edges of my hair; I could stand any­thing but a bunch of peo­ple look­ing at me. They were quite still.

“What’s the mat­ter?” I asked.

Atti­cus said noth­ing. I looked around and up at Mr. Cun­ning­ham, whose face was equal­ly impas­sive. Then he did a pecu­liar thing. He squat­ted down and took me by both shoul­ders.

“I’ll tell him you said hey, lit­tle lady,” he said.

Then he straight­ened up and waved a big paw. “Let’s clear out,” he called. “Let’s get going, boys.”